I think I’ve been there before 

Dovilė Aleksandravičiūtė & Justina Vilčinskaitė, Antti Auvinen, Iván Argote, Aleksander Baszyński, Meryem Bayram, Aurélie Belair, Louisa Gagliardi, Veronika Ivashkevich, Anton Karyuk, Anni Laakso, Hadrien Loumaye, Karolina Majewska, Sebastian Milewski, Katrīna Neiburga, Izabela Olesińska, Iza Opiełka, Angyvir Padilla, Alicja Pakosz, Łukasz Stokłosa, Why Quit (Karolina Balcer & Iwona Ogrodzka)

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I think I’ve been there before is a traveling exhibition project that grew out of observations and research into the certain phenomenon that occurs when being in transit. It takes as its framework the liminality and ‘non-places’ considered in three interweaving paths: 

I. Correlations of architecture as a transit of space and time. 

Thinking about a certain state of anxiety and discomfort that architecture itself can evoke, one can recall public crowded places such as waiting rooms, buses, and airports. Or, on the contrary; vacant lots transformed by time or the development deeds of large cities; hotel corridors straight out of “The Shining” movie – which seems to lead to no particular destination. Following Juhani Pallasmaa, the key role of architecture is a shelter that is a projection of our measurements and needs, it is supposed to enhance our sense of reality and subjectivity. From the sociological perspective, the issue of space in people’s lives remains on the sidelines concerning other studied currents, and there are still some blind spots in public spaces in the form of liminal places that disrupt this order. The first layer of the exhibition deals with situations, feelings, and changes that begin in the architecture and the immediate surroundings, which are shared together, and often seem to be the background for internal experiences. 

II. Territories, domesticity, lost bodies. 

The second layer of the exhibition is exploring the levels of social and political in-betweens in the oppressive, transforming world in which we are anxiously trying to find ourselves. It addresses topics such as displacement caused by war or economics, diasporic populations, and the state of being unsheltered. It questions the idea of home and the territories, the dreamlike areas of doubt. With the rise in industrialisation and the emergence of leisure as an acceptable form of play separate from work, liminoid experiences are becoming more and more common. Often not of our own volition, we live in a time of constant change, where it is difficult to define our place of habitation. Despite this, we somehow strive for comfortable housing that would meet all our needs and be a solace, and stability. At the same time, the world around us is becoming noisier, more dynamic, and cramped, where the boundaries between work, home, and spiritual space are blurring more than ever before.

III. Internal corridors, emotions, disappearance. 

The exhibition ends with abstract emotional suspensions on a more personal level, which causes the feeling of being on the threshold. Liminality appears there as undefined limbo, between our relationships with nature, technology, and spirituality. The notion of liminality has even become the subject of art memes, which, functioning in the metaverse, perhaps show that we can’t quite cope with certain states or haven’t had time to work through them yet. This perspective completes the juxtaposition of the stories about the lack of structured processes for dealing with states such as alienation, illness, and grief, which are about change, disappearance, and transition. At a time when there is an increasing focus on mental health and the topic is not being downplayed, the interweaving of internal themes with what physically surrounds us is becoming something increasingly oficial in social discourses, including art. 

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Through its open and transformative format, the exhibition creates a platform to reflect on places that seem to belong to no one, and a theme close to current globalization and the idea of nomadicity. The project juxtaposes various artistic practices that observe different mental states and anxieties related to the uncertainty caused by liminoid experiences. Twenty-two international artists address these themes in a variety of media, creating a space to reflect on these phenomena, as well as on the meaning of places that we usually pass by involuntarily – because we have to, they are not a destination, but an integral part of space-time.

Natalia Barczyńska 

Organised by: Krupa Art Foundation and Klaipėda Culture Communication Center (KCCC) 

Supported by: European Union and Goethe Institut, Flemish Government, Krupa Gallery

This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

Mmmelting

Melting comes with the end of winter – it can prevent the frost from killing the young plants and bring collective support to no longer be afraid of the future. As we melt, we become immersed in collective sadness.

In spite of using different visual languages, what unites Łukasz Stokłosa and Radek Brousil is their exploration of sensitivity and a similar approach to key social, cultural and environmental issues. The artists take a critical stance towards attitudes such as the stigmatisation of LGBTQ people, racism, and unsustainable industries.

The exhibition is a melancholic tale of exclusion, collective trauma, loss, and that which remains. Mmmelting is about transience, intimacy, the body, vulnerability, mourning, but it is also a harbinger of relief in an unbearable situation and a tribute to youth.

The story revolves around different timelines, blurring the boundaries between the living, the inanimate, and the artificial. The exhibition abounds in nostalgic references to the mass culture of the 1990s, which is when the two artists were growing up. Stokłosa draws mainly on cinematography and TV series, picking up on quirky themes and marginal characters. Brousil, on the other hand, focuses on the atmosphere of the era, its characteristic colours, and music – as demonstrated by his textile installations from t-shirts with names of the bands that were close to him (such as NO AGE).

Łukasz Stokłosa explores the boundaries of truthfulness through painting, which, as he says, has grown into his body. He looks through an emotional filter to pay attention to the elusive dissonances that make us uncertain of what we see. The featured works by Stokłosa include a continuation of a series of paintings drawing on the homoerotic pornographic films of the 1980s. Given the context of the AIDS crisis at that time, they, therefore, commemorate figures who are no longer alive. Back then, the diagnosis was tantamount to a death sentence – the virus killed the young prematurely, just as an early frost kills budding flowers before they have a chance to bloom. In comparison with the current pandemic, the events from before the breakthrough in HIV research are viewed very differently in the USA. Today, the New York Times chronicles those who died of covid-19, whereas in the AIDS era, the public was indifferent to the number of victims until the 1990s. With regard to the situation in Poland, the stigmatisation of queer communities follows in the footsteps of the path in the USA when the AIDS epidemic broke out. What we see in both cases is an epidemic of exclusion. 

While Stokłosa rewrites history by highlighting figures that typically remain in the shadows, Brousil makes an activist statement on an uncertain future, using poetic symbolism and a game of associations. Faced with unresolved social and environmental problems, the artist offers seemingly banal yet thoughtful and poignant solutions. The slogans he smuggles into his photographs, sculptures, and objects smack of the bitterness of misunderstanding. They are mostly excerpts from the lyrics of indie-emo bands, which to a large extent determine the titles of his works or their contents, as in the case of the ceramic hey sorrow, where are you? In his most recent work, Brousil draws inspiration from his observation of athletes’ gestures of motivating each other, usually just before a game. In this case, however, silhouettes of different skin colours come together to mourn and support each other in their shared grief, creating a safe place for the viewers. Today’s problems caused by the consequences of thoughtless human decisions increase the vulnerability to be hurt, against which Brousil’s works do not seem to guard us at all. Instead, they offer understanding, empathy, and intimacy. They create a safe refuge. 

The dialogue emerging between the two artists shatters heteronormative patterns, embracing uncertainty, fantasy, and empathy. The two perspectives of exclusion meet on the surface of intimacy, vulnerability, and mutual support, which, like the melting ice, brings a ray of hope.

curator: Natalia Barczyńska

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Radek Brousil is a Czech artist who makes installations, working predominantly with textiles, alongside ceramics, film, photography, and video. His theme addresses social testimony, presenting an activist expression of an uncertain future. Brousil defines social, cultural, and environmental problems using unexpected interpretations and terminology, and chooses instead to look at these issues on a symbolic, personal, and emotional level. His interest focuses on post-colonial tendencies in contemporary artistic discourse, for example, his investigation into the issue of the origin and distribution of flowers or textiles. Through his work with textiles, Brousil emphasises their Czech origin and African destiny, enabling him to highlight the problems of the market economy and its power structures. Radek Brousil graduated from the Studio of Photography at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague. In 2015 he received the Oscar Čepan Award for Young Visual Artists. His works are included in local and international private and institutional collections.

Łukasz Stokłosa does figurative painting, often inspired by mass culture, films, and series. He feels comfortable with the aesthetics of kitsch. Traveling and visiting historic buildings and landmarks is the source of motifs that he later subjects to transformations. He often uses the somewhat archaic strategy of homoerotic camouflage, which he nevertheless finds interesting; he also draws on the aesthetics of camp. By juxtaposing distant and foreign elements in his practice, he compiles a peculiar cabinet of curiosities. This way of constructing the narrative is especially noticeable in his sculptures-objects. His interests revolve around contemporary interpretations of history and past events. What often characterises his paintings are homoerotic images inspired by gay pornography. Stokłosa’s paintings are sensual and intelligent, appealing and repelling at the same time; there is often more to them than meets the eye, just like in the case of film noir.

Art and nature will always struggle with each other until they overcome each other and triumph, drawing the same lines that are conquered and conquer at the same time.

– Maria Sibylla Merian (b. 1647, artist, explorer of nature, traveller and pioneer of entomology)

“The project BOTANICAL PAINTING WORKSHOP – Triumph of Immateriality emerged out of the need to continue my nature inspired activities in the visual arts. It is a continuation of Locus Amoenus, an action intended to revive the idea of open-air painting workshops in the green space of Wrocław.

My fascination with the soothing effect of vegetation, coupled with a great need to explore nature after my separation with it due to the pandemic, triggered in me the need to return to the garden motif in my work. Whereas previously I approached the theme mainly by analysing an idea or archetype, since my last project Locus Amoenus I have put more emphasis on creating in the direct presence of nature.

The project BOTANICAL PAINTING WORKSHOP – Triumph of Immateriality is based on the idea of establishing a painting studio in a gallery space. It assumes direct contact with the viewer and the process of exchanging experiences.

The central motif of the exhibition and the main object of painting will be a green installation in the Krupa Gallery space titled Living Still Life, inspired by the baroque motif of vanitas in Flanders and Dutch painting.

With its refined arrangement and tasteful composition, the lavish installation will be subjected to the natural processes of growth and decay, never to remain the same.

In this way, we gain the opportunity to observe the transformation of one form into another, the flowering, withering or even death. The ongoing metamorphosis on display will become a triumph of the invisible forces at work in both nature and art.

The installation consists of potted plants, cut plants and mycelium with spores”.

– Monika Konieczna

As a teacher of Visual Structures at the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, Monika Konieczna has for the past six years invited students to keep Visual Notebooks in which they record their observations of various forms in the natural space, the changing light and colour, in search of different ways of representing them. By experiencing the omnipresence of nature impulses, they learn to consciously manage and select visual stimuli. When the eye and brain have to make a quick selection from multiple impulses, creative work follows a completely different course than when working under “controlled” conditions.

As part of the BOTANICAL PAINTING WORKSHOP – Triumph of Immateriality project, the artist invites the audience to her temporary studio at Krupa Gallery, where, surrounded by a vegetal installation, the visitors can not only watch the artist at work, but also join her in the creative process.

We warmly invite you to the plant-filled space arranged by the artist, where you will be able to contemplate nature, relax and create together.

Five painting easels, sheets of paper and pencils are available on site.

You are welcome to bring your own painting utensils: canvases, cards, paints, etc.

www.monikakonieczna.weebly.com

Artifictions is an intentionally coined, previously non-existent word combining two semantic areas: artificiality (falseness, unnaturalness) and fiction (fantasy, invention, illusion). Such a combination therefore creates a tautological linguistic construct, whose individual parts repeat their meaning.

At the same time, however, formulating the title of the exhibition as Artifictions triggers the reflection on whether the artificiality of fiction makes the former even more fictional, or whether the opposite is true. For if fiction, which as a rule is far removed from reality, is labelled with the adjective artificial, this can also mean that in perception it becomes a reflection of something quite real. Looking at Monika Polak’s works, it is impossible to say whether the artist is showing something artificial in her works, or whether we are looking at an artistic representation of sights and objects from the real world. The sizeable canvases depict images that could just as well be viewed under a microscope or through an astronomical telescope. Next to them, membranes resembling tissue extracted from once living organisms are immersed in glass vessels of various sizes. But all this is an illusion presented for a very specific purpose – an illusion created by the artist in her own experimental way by combining traditional painterly pigments with all sorts of resins, media and chemical additives. Thus, the paintings made on classic canvas, but also, for example, on XPS panels (recycled building material), are images that just seem to resemble the actual micro- and macrocosms. In fact, they are abstract compositions created with specially applied dyes and painting media. Similarly, the membranes immersed in liquid in glass vessels, although resembling biological preparations that would normally be preserved in formalin, turn out to be artificially created objects.

Why does the artist play such a game with the viewer by constructing this illusion? Why does she create an artificial impression of viewing objects and images from a biological laboratory? Is her intention to mislead us? Nothing could be further from the truth. Through her works, Monika Polak wants to make the viewer confront some very serious questions about humanism and how it places the human in the role of a host exploiting the natural environment. Through her artistic actions, she signals the phenomena that already occur in our reality, where what is artificial penetrates and merges with biological matter (as, for example, in the case of plastiglomerates, i.e. completely new forms of ecosystem, which are more and more frequently fished out of the oceans), and where the boundary between the living, the real and the inanimate or processed is gradually becoming blurred. It prompts us to reflect on, among other things, transhumanism, which is a utopian movement advocating the use of science (neurotechnology, biotechnology and nanotechnology) to improve the human condition in general and build a sense of happiness. Problems posed in this way even lead to consideration in the context of ethics, bioethics and ecology.

How far, then, can the humans go in the exploitation of our immediate environment and, more broadly, the natural environment? How deeply can we (and should we at all?) interfere with our own bodies, but also with the bodies of other living beings, in order to ultimately improve them? Where, in all this, is the line between what is ethical and what is unethical? Finally – where does the real end and the artificial begin…?

​Monika Polak (b. 1992, Tarnobrzeg)

In 2017 she graduated with honours from the E. Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław with a degree in painting. She has also completed the Interdepartmental Doctoral Studies at the Academy. Recipient of the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for Outstanding Achievements (2016), Artistic Scholarship of the Mayor of Wrocław (2015, 2016), J. Grotowski Scholarship (2019).

Winner of several awards, including the Artistic Award of the University of the Arts in Poznań. She has participated in many exhibitions, including 251st RA Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London; BP Portrait Award 2018, National Portrait Gallery, London; Emerging Lines #1, Galerie du Crous, Paris; What For / What After, Wrocław Contemporary Museum, Wrocław.

In her works she explores the relationship between organic, inorganic and synthetic matter and consequences of technological development, thus drawing attention to the problems of the age of the Anthropocene. She refers to concepts and qualities such as human/inhuman, animate/artificial, micro/macro, past/future, nature/culture, abstraction/figuration. She uses mainly materials of artificial origin, emphasising their current ubiquity, but also their potential to create new forms by usurping the qualities of living beings.

Lovehammer is a project by Jan Możdżyński and Sebulec, in which the two young artists reinterpret and queer a popular, “typically male” hobby – the battle games based on miniature figurines from the Warhammer series. They create their own universe and game in keeping with their vision of the world, which is completely different from the violent original.

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Warhammer is one of the most popular series of figure games, in which players recruit and command armies that later clash on the battlefield. Drawing on the exaggerated and conventionalised aesthetics of violence, the series has become a cultural phenomenon comprising books, films and computer games. In it, powerful fantastic armies fight countless battles in an endless cosmic war.

In the Age of Lovehammer exhibition, the artists use motifs and tropes characterising this type of entertainment, as well as inspiration from manga, fantasy and legends, to queer violence-based attitudes and turn the mechanics of battle into a love idiom. It is both a visual fantasy and a social necessity – as advocates of love and equality, feminists, but also fans of battle games, Sebulec and Możdżyński propose to change the stereotypical, antagonistic perspective into a relationship based on care, love and affection. They want to play, but on their own terms, reflecting what they themselves believe in.

Lovehammer is both a visual fantasy and a social demand – it is a proposal based on popular entertainment that challenges the dominant logic of conflict and struggle, questioning war as one of the founding myths and a way of building relationships. Sebulec and Możdżyński subvert the model example of the logic of conflict. Their world crosses the boundaries of the heteronormative gaze and the burden of historical borrowings and social traditions.

Age of Lovehammer is the second installment in the Lovehammer project. This time, the artists have expanded their universe and created a space that allows the audience to become actively involved.

Following the example of other wargame realms, the artists treat Lovehammer as an independent universe. This time, the exhibition is set in the Warp World, which is inhabited by Fetishes who are continuously headed to the Core – the unique interior of each of us, made up of the sum of our experiences, ideas and encounters. This journey is repeated many times in the course of our lives, and for some it never ends. Lovehammer is a record of this journey, and the players can decide how it goes and what values will shape the Warp World.

The two miniature armies encountered in the Age of Lovehammer are Sebulec’s Beautiful Beasts and Możdżyński’s Repentants (Crunchies).

Repentants (Crunchies) are a cloud of feelings, ideas, impressions and lives. They are fluid, never unambiguously defined; changeable, escaping heteronorms, patriarchy and the confines of gender. They draw power from the night, the whisper of whisperers and witch rituals. Transgression is their nature, transgender reversal is their method.

Repentants (Crunchies) are about:

transience, change, transformation, transition, body, spirit, moment, fluidity, gender, gender-fluid, social contract, norm, heteronorm, patriarchy, mismatch, dimorphism, transgenderism, transvestism, feminism, mysticism, ritual, tarot, crowley, witch, whisper, whisperer, night, consciousness, memory, historical memory

Sebulec’s Beautiful Beasts represent non-normativity, people who have been rejected, in crisis, forced to hide their identity. Their beauty is their scars, their vulnerability, their path, their strength.

“I look in the mirror and I feel like smashing it,” raps watchmedieslowly, an emo rapper of the youngest generation. The Beautiful Beasts are wild, clumsy and unsure of themselves. Will they be able to embark on the inward journey and love themselves anew?

The Beautiful Beasts are about:

corporeality, queerness, fur, muscles, danger, seduction, jaws, fangs, saliva, biting, eating oneself, flesh, ritual, skinning/revealing the inside, chaos, rebellion, armour, touch, tenderness, wounds, veins, magic, nature, symmetry, metal, hot bulls, werewolves, mermaids.

The entire exhibition is also a game in its own right. Throughout its duration, the audience will have the possibility to take turns and move the figurines-works of art at specific times.

The gameplay rules for the Age of Lovehammer in Warp World were created in collaboration with Paul Kimczak.

Press:

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The Krupa Gallery Summer Stage is a series of exhibitions and accompanying cultural events held during the holiday season in the gallery’s temporary seat on the Old Town Boulevard in Wrocław. The programme focuses on the presentation of young artists and new, interesting phenomena in art.

The project emerged out of the desire and need to look for solutions that would promote and popularise contemporary art and actively support artists’ work and development. The purpose of the initiative is also to promote cooperation between the private sector and the field of culture and art.

The Krupa Gallery Summer Stage is organised in cooperation with the Makima Group. Selected works featured at the exhibitions will be purchased for the Krupa Gallery Foundation collection.

EXHIBITIONS:

Aleksander Baszynski
Politics of Sound
10.06 – 31.07.2022

Veronika Ivashkevich
I don’t wanna wake up from this tonight
10.06 – 31.07.2022

Pink sadness is the sadness of white anchovies. It is the sadness of deprivation, of going without, of having to swallow when your throat is no bigger than an acupuncture pin; it’s the sadness of mushrooms born with heads too big for their bodies, the sadness of having the soles come off your only pair of shoes, or your favorite pair, it makes no difference, pink sadness cannot be measured by a gameshow host, it is the sadness of shame when you have done nothing wrong, pink sadness is not your fault, and though even the littlest twinge may cause it, it is the vast bushy top on the family tree of sadness, whose faraway roots resemble a colossal squid with eyes the size of soccer balls.

– Mary Ruefle, My Private Property, Wave Books, 2016

In her series of essays entitled My Private Property, American poet Mary Ruefle describes various colours of sadness. Blue sadness is the sadness of reverie and nostalgia. Purple sadness is the sadness of classical music and eggplant, insomnia and the crescent moon. Orange sadness is the sadness of anxiety, yellow – of surprises, naps and eggs. Brown sadness is simple, white is the sadness of radio waves travelling endlessly in space.

Ivashkevich’s practice is tinged with a specific aura of nostalgia and melancholy. As in Ruefle’s case, in works by Ivashkevich sadness is mixed with joy, trivial and common things are juxtaposed with matters of the utmost importance, thus gaining a poetic dimension.

Ivashkevich often draws on scenes from the films she has watched. They are barely recognisable, however, because she intertwines them with products of her own imagination and memories from the past. In this way, a series of intriguing stories with unexpected twists and turns has emerged.

Seemingly superficial beauty, which Ivashkevich spices up with an admixture of absurdity, reveals a world full of mysteries and surreal scenarios. Faceless or backward-facing figures; a composition borrowed from Masato Seto’s photography, in which the toy object is replaced with the skeleton of a cheetah – these and other elements in Ivashkevich’s works heighten the sense of anxiety and even horror, leaving the viewer in the sphere of guesses and speculation. They depict the thin line that separates a dream from a nightmare.

Alongside cinema, sleep and the painting process provide Ivashkevich with a springboard to escape from reality. They create an intimate space, a precious area of private property, to which we are temporarily granted access.

Veronika Ivashkevich

Born in 1992 in Minsk, Belarus, she has graduated from the Minsk State College of Art and Design (Department of Painting) and Saint Petersburg Stieglitz Academy of Fine Arts (Department of Conservation and Restoration of Painting). In 2016, she received a scholarship from the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław; in 2021 – within the Gaude Polonia programme. Her works have been shown at individual and collective exhibitions in Belarus, Russia, Bulgaria and the USA.
She works as an art conservator.
She lives in Warsaw, Poland.

* title borrowed from Lana del Rey’s song entitled Dark Paradise

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

– Karl Marx

In the era of being “online,” freedom of speech resonates as information overload, in which contact with reality is as blurred as the boundaries of truth.

Analysing the characteristic phenomena of the Cold War leads to the conclusion that the current information field has long been ploughed by propaganda and disinformation. The effectiveness of the two contributed to the collapse of the USSR. When the sounds of the Cold War began to fade away, the empty space was immediately filled with the noise of information warfare.

Having witnessed the conflicts in Western Europe in recent years, I experience the polarisation and chaos of facts on my own skin.

Each of us, consciously or not, is a participant in the information war. We ask ourselves: Where is this sound coming from and where exactly is it supposed to go?

What is the Politics of Sound?

Aleksander Baszynski

Born in 1993 in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, Sasza has graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kiev and since 2017 he has studied at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław.
Winner of the Main Prize in the 3^rd edition of the Wojciech Fangor National Student Painting Competition, Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk (2020).

We barely speak of them and their name escapes us. Philosophy has always overlooked them, more out of contempt than out of neglect. They are the cosmic ornament, the inessential and multicolored accident that reigns in the margins of the cognitive field. The contemporary metropolis views them as superfluous trinkets of urban decoration. Outside the city walls, they are hosts—weeds—or objects of mass production. Plants are the always open wound of the metaphysical snobbery that defines our culture.^[1]

This quote from the introduction to the book The Life of Plants. A Metaphysics of Mixture by Italian philosopher Emanuele Coccia highlights our dual attitude towards plants, depending on the context in which they appear. The same organism can have a completely different status in various cultural or economic spaces. The example of plants classified as weeds serves as the best illustration. Biological sciences do not distinguish this category at all, so assigning a plant to it depends on the circumstances. A weed is not always a weed, and not everywhere. One floral species can simultaneously function as a medicinal plant, a decorative one, or fall into the group of Plantae Malum – “evil plants.”

All the adjectives and phrases used to describe these undesirable organisms come down to one keyword – “wildness,” understood as an extreme, untameable state, excessive fertility, uncontrollable growth. As the Concise Oxford Dictionary suggests, “weed” is a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.[2] It belongs neither among agricultural crops, nor in manicured parks or gardens, where it nevertheless spreads spontaneously. Forced to adapt to life anywhere, it seizes moments of human inattention or neglect. Even a cursory examination of the behaviour of plants considered as weeds reveals their amazing ability to co-evolve with humans, develop new strategies for survival and growth. They can successfully adjust to any environment, even one that has been deeply changed by intensive farming or industry. Some of them are botanical doppelgangers, mimicking the appearance and growth rate of cultivated crops – their survival thus depends on the difficulty of telling them apart. Their greatest crime is failing to conform to human rules by appearing in places allocated a different function.

Look

Unlike ornamental plants cultivated in gardens, weeds – Plantae Malum – are not supposed to be looked at. They deserve neither the space they take up nor our glance. We avert our eyes from them because they seem unattractive, unwanted and inappropriate. However, by selecting the right method of styling and photographing them, Anna Kędziora forces us to pay attention. She uses the kenzan to arrange the plants into a form known from floristics and allows them to fill in the entire frame. Appropriate lighting and background selection brings out their details – colour, variety, texture, shape. As a result, they turn from worthless waste into tenderly portrayed organisms. Are these artistic gestures enough to make Plantae Malum beautiful (Plantae Pulchrum), and therefore good?

Word

The language of talking about weeds uses dualistic, stigmatising terms and metaphors focusing on the undesirable features of these plants and their relations with other plants and with people. It leads to demonization and consolidates our stereotypical way of thinking about them, unambiguously demonstrating the human fear of losing control and deliberately blocking any ethical reflection on them. Being aware of the power of language to shape our consciousness, Anna Kędziora uses it in a very perverse manner. In the presented recording, she does not reveal the names of the plants featured at the exhibition; instead, she reads out their physical descriptions taken from the atlas of weeds. The detailedness of these entries has a specific function – to enable precise identification and effective elimination of the unwanted specimen. However, the omission of their names results in the creation of a huge entanglement of random words, all the more so since neither the photographs nor the wax prints are labelled. How can we then know what we are actually looking at? Deprived of a clue in the form of a name, we are lost, forced to fall back on our own intuition. The recited words, with a surprisingly large number of diminutives among them, quickly disappear. The woman’s voice makes them sound poetic. Is this the way to talk about weeds?

Wildness

Anna Kędziora makes no attempt to arrange the featured plants into a compact, structured set. Her collection of beeswax prints seems unsystematic and chaotic; sometimes only a fragment of a plants is visible, with the details missing. We have to rely on our memory and imagination not to recognise the plant, but to recall how it would look in a wild meadow. The graphic hybrids, based on botanical drawings of weeds, are the most unruly. In the colonial world, plant hybrids had a special status. Many of them were of significant economic value, demonstrating the effectiveness of innovative breeding methods. In general, no hybrids were created that would be harmful to crops. That is why I perceive Anna Kędziora’s gesture as liberating. Plantae Malum have escaped – from the plant atlas, from ugliness and oblivion, throwing off the shackles of linguistic clichés and definitions. Will they become even a little more noticeable or wanted, will we let them be (themselves)? If not, one more question remains: Is it possible that, as a result of environmental degradation, the plants that are considered weeds today will ever be protected as endangered?

^[1] E. Coccia, The Life of Plants. A Metaphysics of Mixture, Wiley-Blackwell, 2018, p. 3.

[2] The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 10th edition, edited by Judy Pearsall, Oxford University Press, 1999.

This spring, the building of Concordia Design Wrocław, a popular meeting place for the inhabitants of Wrocław, will house a temporary, publicly accessible studio of the Wrocław-based artist Kasia Kmita. As part of a project organised by the Krupa Gallery, Kmita will work on a series of portraits of contemporary Wrocław inhabitants created in the traditional papercutting technique.

En face. En trois quart. En pied. Nuptial, collective or self-portraits, showing the model in diverse ways, under various circumstances and with different techniques, are among the oldest types of representational art and a rich source of information about our ancestors – how they lived over the centuries, what interested them and even what diseases plagued them.

Commissioning a famous artist to do a portrait used to be an indicator of status, a visible sign of belonging to a given social class and a means of ensuring immortality. We know famous depictions of rulers, scholars and members of the elite, but also more intimate portraits immortalising people from the artist’s environment – other artists, friends or family members.

In 2020, during the pandemic, Kasia Kmita started a project called Portrait Studio. It was based on the idea that anyone could send her their photo, which Kmita used to make a cut-out portrait and then published on a specially created profile on Instagram.

Today, when the pandemic restrictions are slowly being lifted, the artist can use more traditional methods of working live with a model. The lack of a virtual distance or barrier in the form of a screen glass allows her to get a better look at the model, understand their character and personality.

The project Portrait Studio 2022 will be carried out with the involvement of the residents of Wrocław.

In the Concordia Design Wrocław building on Słodowa Island, a public portrait studio will be arranged for a period of two months, during which Kasia Kmita will create visitors’ portraits. They will include both well-known figures who have rendered great services for the culture of Wrocław, as well as people who applied to participate in the project.

Kasia Kmita often portrays members of her environment: artists, curators, journalists, but also people she meets by chance. Like the old masters of painting, she focuses not only on showing the physical likeness of a given person, but also on capturing their character and the social context in which they function. Kmita presents her models with accompanying attributes, paying special attention to the details of their outfit or manner of being. What emerges as a result is not just the model’s portrait, but a depiction of the times in which they live, the customs and trends that they follow.

The works created as a result of the project Portrait Studio will make up a collective representation of today’s inhabitants of Wrocław, which will reflect the character of the city and its residents. We hope that it will provide our descendants with valuable information about life in Wrocław in the 2020s.

The project will be accompanied by educational activities: workshops for children and adults, curator-led tours and meetings with the artist.

HOW TO TAKE PART IN THE PROJECT

As part of the project, Kasia Kmita does portraits of inhabitants of Wrocław.

We would like to invite you to pose for the artist at her Portrait Studio in the Concordia Design Wrocław building (Wyspa Słodowa 7). The meeting over coffee will last 1–2 hours. During this time, the artist will prepare sketches, which she will later use to create a portrait using the paper cutting technique.

The number of places is limited. If you would like to participate in the project, please send an email to the following address:

anna.stec@krupagallery.pl

The project is accompanied by educational activities: workshops for children and adults, curator-led tours and meetings with the artist.

The studio is open to the public on selected Fridays:

1 April, 8 April, 13 May, 20 May, 27 May, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

SCHEDULE

2 April 2022 (Saturday), 12–2 p.m. – paper cutting workshops for children / prior registration required

Venue: Concordia Design Wrocław, Wyspa Słodowa 7

8 May 2022 (Sunday), 12–2 p.m. – intergenerational workshop on portrait drawing / prior registration required

Venue: Concordia Design Wrocław, Wyspa Słodowa 7

14 May 2022 (Saturday), 7.00 p.m. – 9.00 p.m. – guided tours for the audience and meeting with the artist

Venue: Concordia Design Wrocław, Wyspa Słodowa 7

05.06.2022 (Sunday), godz. 4 – 6PM – studio visit and meeting with the artist
Venue: Concordia Design Wrocław, Wyspa Słodowa 7

KASIA KMITA

Kasia Kmita (b. 1972) studied at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław. In 1996 she received a diploma in painting.

In her practice Kmita primarily uses a meticulously refined form of traditional papercutting. Her works often contain insights about the latest trends, lifestyles and everyday life in the city, including relatively new urban traditions that have already taken root in our culture. She carefully observes changes in society, analyses the desires and mechanisms governing human behaviour. By combining elements of Polish folklore with pop culture symbols, Kasia Kmita’s work create a colourful portrait of contemporary times.

She lives and works in Wrocław.

http://kasiakmita.com/

CONCORDIA DESIGN

Concordia Design Wrocław is a centre of creativity and business. It is a business hub for young entrepreneurs with a programme of cultural events as well as a bar and a restaurant. It has a rich educational (meetings, discussions) and artistic offer (exhibitions and concerts). The events organised in Concordia are intended to encourage social participation of various groups of inhabitants.

Contemporary virtual reality and the creeping merger of technology and our bodies seem to define the future of the human species in an unprecedented way. By offering the promise of a life free from biological, spatial and temporal constraints, they materialise old millenarian ideas and the primordial desire to achieve immortality.

The exhibition focuses on the attempt to overcome death as the main vector of futurological concepts of humanity. While referring to contemporary transhumanism, Russian cosmism and ancient roots, it tells the story of the last people.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the defence of the artist’s doctoral dissertation.

Paweł Baśnik (b. 1992) is a co-founder of the Bezimienny painting collective, the Church of Nihilists – a para-religious art group and gallery, and the Przemijam magazine. He has graduated from the Faculty of Painting and Sculpture of the E. Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław. In his practice he refers to mortuary issues and historical and psychological motives. His latest works raise topics connected with transhumanist notions of immortality, including their mythological and religious roots, posing questions about the origins and limits of civilisational progress. He lives and works in Wrocław.

❞ The armed ranks come together in an amorous embrace. Cupid’s arrows pierce bucklers and hearts. The forces of love triumph while the sweet furries clash with the muscular Cubs in light split armor. Shouts of armies of protective spirits whiz in the air❞ .

Today’s games are mostly about competition. Discord is typically encapsulated by struggle, battle and violence. War.
At the root of the exhibition is a passion shared by both artists – miniature wargames.
Warhammer is a series of games in which fantasy armies fight countless battles in an endless, eternal war. Different factions, armies and fantastic creatures, races and monsters, clash on epic battlefields. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war^[1].

This dark world, whose essence is combat, has developed its characteristic aesthetics, based on an array of weapons, muscles, claws and broadly understood violence – exaggerated, aestheticised and conventionalised. At the same time, it freely draws on various historical references. Over time, the Warhammer universe grew to include books, films and computer games describing subsequent alliances and stages of the conflict. It has become a cultural phenomenon and an emblem of one of the aspects of popular culture.

While advocating equality, freedom and feminism, two young artists, Jan Możdżyński and Sebastian Sebulec, queer this world by turning war into a battle of love. They create their alternative miniature armies – guardian armies, which at the LoveHammer exhibition are presented through the prism of love. Instead of fighting to the death, they are fighting a different battle. The artists thus question the stereotypical order of the “boyish” game, expressed through brute force and culminating in war and violence

This alternative vision of discord and battle reverses its order. Cubs and Mutts in Love meet in a non-antagonistic fight.

The armies

Jan Możdżyński
Crumblings

I started my Warhammer collection with the army of Necrons – cosmic “mummies.” Centuries ago, as a result of internal wars, the soul of their ancient ruler disintegrated into millions of miniscule particles. Similarly, the figurines in my works – they are parts of me. They are my personal army of moods, attitudes, thoughts and infatuations. Despite their rough appearance, these are fragile creatures. They often originate from crude 3D models from computer games from the turn of the century – the time of my childhood. I am still quite naive in my perception of the world, which is why my warriors of love fight with tenderness, curiosity and boastfulness with a tinge of jealousy.
I like them because they are lonely and nobody looks after them. But maybe that will change soon.

vs.

Sebulec
Mutts in Love

Mutts in Love are at it again!

These seemingly harmless cuties know tricks that will raise your bloodpressure and awaken butterflies in your stomach… They lure their victims with voluptuous shapes and a hypnotic dance, while their sweet eyes pierce right through to see the hidden longings of your soul. Their claws are dripping with liquid desire – one scratch will make it impossible for you to stop thinking about them. But poisoned arrows are their most dangerous weapon; woe to those who are hit.
However, their weapons of choice can be treacherous and unpredictable… Perhaps the powers they have managed to tame will get out of hand and lead to their undoing?

–

The battle playing out in the biggest window of Krupa Gallery’s seat is accompanied by a codex – a publication that usually accompanies wargames, presenting the fighting characters and units, their special skills and attacks, methods of fighting. The publication is available as a pdf file to be downloaded from the Gallery’s website.

Jan Możdżyński lives and works in Warsaw, where in 2018 he graduated from the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts.
In his artistic practice raises topics connected with gender, gender iden-tity, and stigmatisation due to sexual preferences. His works show the relationship between feminism and the rights of sexual minorities. He refers to BDSM fetishes and related items, depicts role-playing situations, disintegrating the traditional understanding of masculinity and feminini-ty. He is interested in the mechanisms of repressive patriarchy.
He is an active participant in the BDSM community. He practices boxing and conducts boxing classes for friends.

Sebulec studied Animated Film at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He works with 3D graphics, animation, and game engines; he pays particular attention to the figures of virtual companions, avatars, and guides. He is also inspired by the culture and aesthetics of online fandoms.

[1] from the cover of a rulebook for one of the Warhammer variants (Warhammer 40,000. Rogue Trader, RPG)

Press:

Wiktoria Wojciechowska’s Sparks is an interdisciplinary project portraying the war in Donbas. Created between winter 2014 and summer 2016 the project is centered around a series of portraits of young, regular people, coming from different backgrounds, who had to leave their lives and go to the frontline, become soldiers of war. The project is a polyphonic image comprised of photography, video, collages and stories. The artist has also included both her own material and sources provided by the soldiers and civilians, in her work. Subsequent series of works in the exhibition create an image of personal experience of a human faced with terrors of war, as well as personal and collective memory.

Sparks, presented in numerous exhibitions around the world, were mediating the conflict and the personal experience of the people involved in it, around the world. It has advocated the regular people’s suffering and trauma gained in the effect of this tragic war, to the international audiences and public opinion. Yet, it has never been presented in the Ukraine, to the people who took part in it and shared their personal stories. The exhibition at Lviv Art Center is the first public presentation of the Sparks in the Ukraine, an occasion to fill this gap and thank the participants for their generous involvement.

Seven years have passed since the project started and both the war and the portrayed soldiers are in a different place and situation in their lives. Having come back from the frontline they had to find themselves in civilian, everyday life. The exhibition at Lviv Art Center aims to underline the aftermath of the fighting experience in the lives of those who had to take the arms. The public programme will include not only artistic discussions and guided tours, but also events focused at the mental condition and psychological cost paid by the former soldiers.

The exhibition is a cooperation project between Lviv Art Center from the Ukraine and Krupa Gallery from Poland.

Wiktoria Wojciechowska (b. 1991) lives in Paris and Lublin, works across photography, film, collage and sculpture. Her works refer to current events portraying society and individuals. Her practices are particularly focused on observation and understanding of human lives and stories through the rules of society and history. The projects are characterized by fragmentariness and non-linearity based on shreds of conversations, images, rituals and collected items.

Sparks completed between 2014 and 2016 received several international awards, including at the Festival Rencontres d’Arles 2018: Prix Madame Figaro and Public Choice Discovery Award. Work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, such as: Jimei X Arles festival, Xiamen, China; Krakow Photomonth, Poland; Museum of Photography in Riga, Latvia; Exhibition Bureau in Warsaw, Poland; Villa Perochon, Niort, France; La Filature, Mulhouse, France; MUCEM, Marseille, France; Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon.

Wiktoria Wojciechowska’s works are part of public and private collections, i.a. Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Grenoble Museum; Festival Rencontres de la photographie, Arles; Fondation François Schneider, Wattwiller; Fondation des Treilles, Paris; Polish Modern Art Foundation, Warsaw. Recently she was part of the Trouble in Paradise PROLOG+1 project for the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale Architettura 2021, Italy.

PUBLIC PROGRAMME

18.11.2021

4 pm
Press preview

18.11.2021

6 pm
Exhibition opening

19.11.2021

4 pm
Artist’s guided tour of the exhibition 

7 pm
Panel discussion: Aftermath of being a solider

The war in Donbas, which is still carried on, has already been a disastrous experience for a large number of people, especially those who had to join the army. Changing one’s life and identification, from an engineer, show assistant of dj to a soldier, getting accustomed to the horrors of was, surviving the frontline, and than back to a civilian, living a regular life, cannot come without a cost. If it is possible at all. And this effect has risen to be an experience of a generation.
Those problems seem not to be addressed and present enough in the public debate. The panel with experts and ex-soldiers is aimed at discussing the visibility of problems and mental harm made by war. 

The discussion will be held at Lviv Art Center as well as live streamed over Youtube. Submitting questions online will be available.

participants:

moderator: Pavlo Kovach

Roksolana Fedets

Levytskyi Maksym

Bura Daria

27.11 .2021

4pm
exhibition guided tour with the curator

2.12.2021

7:30pm
Mental health support infopoint

An open meeting. Roksolana Fedets, an expert in psychological support and therapy for people who have experienced trauma, will be providing basic information, for any interested persons, about the aftermath of the war in the mental health of the soliders.
Everyone is welcome to join, both soldiers and other people, interested in the symptoms, looking for ways to find support for themselves or their friends, having questions or wishing find a person to talk about those issues. 

The meeting is open and free. 

4.12.2021

4pm
exhibition guided tour with the curator

11.12.2021

4pm
exhibition guided tour with the curator

Press:

The Krupa Gallery is pleased to invite you to the Winter Stage – christmas art and publications shop, which will be held on Bulwar Staromiejski in Wrocław at the weekend of 18-19 December 2021. During the event, it will be possible to see and purchase works by young Wrocław artists and artists associated with the Krupa Gallery.

The Winter Stage will feature works by students of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Wrocław (associated with Studio 112 run by Dr Anna Kołodziejczyk). The Papier w Dole publishing house will present a catalogue of its publications.

If you are looking for an original gift for your loved ones or for yourself, or if you simply want to see works by young artists from Wrocław and other places – come and visit us!

❆ ❆ ❆

The initiatives carried out by the Krupa Gallery are intended to promote and popularise contemporary art. We would like to encourage the inhabitants of Wrocław to actively support the work and development of artists, promote the idea of collecting art and help future collectors take their first steps on the art market.

❆ ❆ ❆

participants:

Krupa Gallery

Students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Wrocław (students of Studio 112 run by Dr Anna Kołodziejczyk)

Papier w Dole publishing house

BWA Wrocław (publications)

OP ENHEIM (publications and merchandising Slavs and Tatars)

In the TV jargon, “cliffhanger” describes a narrative device that consists in ending an episode (or the whole season) of a TV series at the most intense proliferation of ultra-dramatic plots. In this way, the series gets suspended at a metaphorical cliff, aiming to generate among the audience a mix of curiosity and frustration that will coerce them to watching on. Effective and campy cliffhangers largely contributed to the massive popularity of Dynasty, a TV show produced throughout the 1980s in the US. Its cliffhangers played a role akin to sentence punctuation, informing the rhythm and pace of the storytelling. In such episode endings, the characters are often on the verge of tragic death, falling or being pushed down sets of stairs and off the balconies ill-secured by wobbly railing. Some succumb to car and horse accidents, always plagued by hefty showers and thunderous storms. Others get trapped in a building that a masked avenger sets fire to, or they fall victim to a mass shooting, instigated by political rebels, during a church-wedding ceremony. Characters once considered dead return to the living, towards whom they ache with murderous desire, and each incidental encounter turns out to be, sooner or later, a heavily plotted situation with a double, if not triple, entendre.

Dynasty was a massive pop-cultural phenomenon, also in Poland. The series, broadcast on public TV in the early-1990s, i.e. during the tumultous systemic transformation, oozed with the mirage of neoliberal opulence and success. Its protagonists, centered around two oil mogul families – the Carringtons and the Colbys – lived exuberantly wealthy lives: they wandered, from room to room, in luxurious interios, gobbled on caviar, and flew private planes whenever and wherever they found fit. At the same time, their lives were filled with an endless stream of shenanigans and trouble, which, week by week, forced them to face the forces threatening their wealth and lives (usually in that order). Łukasz Stokłosa’s multi-medial exhibition is a nostalgic-hauntologic afterimage of the luxurious world of Dynasty. Some of the works are video installations that loop short fragments of the selected cliffhangers and are scored by a cacophony of heavily compressed sound samples of the series’ original soundtrack. The glitchy aesthetics of these works may evoke an experience of watching Dynasty at a CRT TV set, with its characteristic pale-blue sheen and technological glitches. A similarly elliptic strategy of referencing the storylines of the series also characterizes most of the paintings, which present objects, such as tableware or set design elements, sometimes sharp, at other times, like in a dreamy recollection, blurry and pouring with bright stains over a murky background. Their causal relation with Dynasty’s specific plots and their chronology is veiled and uncertain, as if distilled out of the dramatic tension that underlies cliffhangers. These paintings are counterpointed by a few portraits referencing the production backstories that used the replacements of actors and actresses as a fuel to concocting implausible plots. Stokłosa’s exhibition gestures towards what, in the “here and now,” remains of Dynasty, together with its exciting and violent narrative malaise, coloring the images of opulence from the era when the promise of a bright capitalist was still treated with seriousness

Sorry, this entry is only available in Polish.

Jacek Fota’s photographs present views from the tram window, such as: mediative images of the fields on the city border, people standing by a kiosk, young men chatting in a muddy parking lot. The ordinariness of these sights is comforting – they are evidence of an ongoing life and of a flowing time. The seasons change, the life cycle closes and reopens. The selection of the photographs presented at the exhibition is determined by the concept of peace and meditation, of taming reality, of focusing on looking at the image, wandering freely through the details of photographs and its colors, and the structure contained in the image.

However, the Window Views exhibition occurs not only in looking at the photos, in which the banality takes on weight and intensity. The place of presentation and the way the photographs are presented are the successive planes on which the narrative of the exhibition unfolds. Suspended between functions, the space is temporarily appropriated by the exhibition and photographs – while at the same time fulfilling the classic requirements of a white cube. Once again, we are on the verge – in the space of a wasteland that makes sense.

Check out the courtyard of ul. Ruska 46 for a special project of the Art Scene of the 21st New Horizons International Film Festival. The Midnight Show is an exhibition-screening that starts punctually at midnight and ends at 1:00 AM, only to start again the next evening.

This is the fifth edition of the Midnight Show (the previous ones took place in 2013–2016) prepared by BWA Wrocław during the New Horizons festival. For nine evenings, exhibition screenings will begin when the last film screenings in the theaters end. The medium of this year’s edition is neon – a means of expression deeply rooted both in the cinematographic iconography and in the urban space creating the scenery of nightlife.

Midnight Show V: More Light! consists of two premiere productions designed by Monika Drożyńska and Michał Frydrych, which will see the light… of night in a neon-lit backyard located on ul. Ruska 46. This is where the outdoor Neon Side Gallery is located, displaying a large collection of historical Wrocław neon signs. Starting at midnight (for an hour) all the neons will be turned off and give way to the Midnight Show, composed of two neon installations. So, it can be said that it spans between turning the lights on and off, between the figures of knowledge and mystery, between enlightenment and its antithesis – entering the darkness, and also (in cinematographic language) between the opening and final credits, because the end of each performance is always an introduction to the next.

Neon leads us towards the landscape of modernity, pop culture, advertising and the society of the spectacle. It seduces with its decorative qualities and an appetizingly artificial aura. It is an urban mirage – and, at the same time, it has the potential of a persuasive message. It is related to cinema, which also oscillates between waking up and awakening the public to participate in public debates. We would like to emphasize this dual nature of the medium during the Midnight Show.

A neon show, like a film screening, needs darkness that it can illuminate. Following this path, we refer to the concept of enlightenment, with our title recalling the final words of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, “More light!” We repeat them at a time when the ideas of the Enlightenment, i.e., the conviction of reason’s privileged role in the cognitive processes or in societal organization and political discourse, sway under the pressure of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and alternative facts. The victory of light is neither inevitable nor unequivocal – nor is the figure of Goethe, a man of the Enlightenment and at the same time a precursor of Romanticism. Even his final message is inscribed with ambivalence: the poet uttered these words on his deathbed, walking into the darkness. Some even say that he did not say “mehr Licht!” [more light] but “mehr nicht” [more nothing].

Held in the context of the festival, the Midnight Show was created as a platform for dialogue between the exhibition medium and the parameters that define the cinematographic experience. Editing, dramaturgy, sequence of events, projection, light, darkness and time are some of the tools and figures that we borrow from the world of cinematography to involve them in creating an exhibition-as-screening, film-without-film with artifacts starring in the leading roles. The fifth edition takes place between the flashback formula and the project sequel.

There Used to Be Such a Park, They Called it Jungle Gym

Oak-hornbeam forests, riparian forests and other forested areas, gardens, parks, yards, terraces, balconies, greenhouses, promenades, pergolas… The green landscape of Wrocław has been formed over the centuries, as evidenced by notes and documents such as drawings, paintings or texts. It was already mentioned in Renaissance literature, in which Silesia was called Elysium – the Paradise Garden.

Throughout the centuries, the gardens of Wrocław performed various functions. In the Middle Ages, they served monks as places of contemplation due to their symbolism, but also fulfilled purely utilitarian functions, enabling them to cultivate edible and medicinal plants. In the Renaissance, gardens were supposed to express the harmony of the world as well as perform educational and scientific roles – this is when the first hortus botanicus appeared in Wrocław. In subsequent centuries, gardens became recreational salons and arenas of social life. This is why the aesthetics of gardens gained special importance, often supplemented with an element of surprise, particularly in the Baroque and Mannerism (as opposed to the harmonious planning of Renaissance gardens). In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, parks and public garden were primarily used as recreational areas, sometimes as amusement parks, enabling the inhabitants of overcrowded cities to take a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Many forms of Wrocław’s greenery and gardens have not survived to our times. Among them was the Renaissance Rybisch Garden, stretching from the present Ofiar Oświęcimskich street up to the City Moat, whose architectural layout referred to the ancient Roman villa urbana, or the numerous établissement, also known as Gardens of Delight, which served the role of entertainment complexes. All that has survived is some architectural elements, but the gardens, greenhouses and palm houses are all but gone.

It is hard to fathom today that Wrocław gardens used to be internationally famous. The garden of Dr. Laurentius Scholtz von Rosenau, established in 1587 between today’s Piotra Skargi and Wierzbowa streets, was dubbed the paradise of Wrocław and described in Renaissance literature as locus amoenus (pleasant place). It boasted 340 genera of plants, including medicinal and exotic plants, such as oranges, figs, tobacco, as well as some complete novelties of those times: potatoes, tomatoes and tulips. The garden-salon was famous all over Europe because it was the venue for sumptuous parties for the elite, e.g. Floralia Wratislaviensia, modelled on the ancient festival in honour of the Roman goddess Flora. Its greatest attractions included an artificial stone grotto, a pyramid-shaped bird cage, an Egyptian mummy placed in a cabinet of curiosities or works of art, for example Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The owner published catalogues of the cultivated plants and made sure that his garden appeared in works of poetry and graphic art, which is why its legend has survived to this day.
In the 17^th century, the complex was transformed by Wolfgang Scharschmidt into the Water Garden – probably the most eccentric garden layout in Wrocław. The visitors were surprised by numerous water installations and plumbing devices designed by the owner himself. Supposedly, there was a warning at the entrance: “If you do not wish to get sprayed, be careful, because one misstep will make you wet right behind this door.” Water, beer and wine gushed out of the bizarre sculptures and taps in the stone grotto.

Where is Lucretia

The richness of forms and functions of Silesian gardens continues to stimulate imagination. The latest series of paintings by Wrocław-based artist Monika Konieczna is inspired by the history of local greenery. Her growing fascination with nature has resulted, among other things, from the recent experience of the pandemic, when freedom of being in nature was restricted and the lack of contact with it was felt even more acutely. As the artist explains, what comes to the fore in her paintings from the Locus Amoenus series is “the need to return to nature, to a paradise lost, perhaps to myself.”

The works contain a number of references to the history of art and literature. Of particular importance is the tree archetype, present in our collective unconscious for centuries as a symbol of life and death, rebirth, a link between earth and heaven, a celestial pole (axis mundi). The artist dedicates subsequent paintings to actual trees. Her large-format canvases as well as small sketches depict the silhouettes of Wrocław’s natural monuments: the Guide Oak at Sucha Street, the plane tree by the Holy Trinity Nursing Home, or the tulip trees from the South Park.
Naturally, the subject of the paintings is connected with the eponymous “pleasant place.”
The literary topos of locus amoenus appeared already in ancient times, and its image is deeply rooted in the history of painting. Literary works clearly specify which elements constitute the idyllic pleasant place. Whether in ancient Arcadia, the mythological Elysium or the biblical Eden, trees, grass and water are always there, testifying to the beauty of the place and creating a safe haven.
All these elements can also be found in the paintings by Konieczna, who considers nature to be her hideout and safe place. Nature appears here primarily as a fantastic and dynamic phenomenon. Konieczna’s paintings are far from the ordered landscapes by Lorrain or Poussain. The artist juxtaposes elements of the authentic, natural landscape of Wrocław with surreal images of non-existent city gardens. Exotic animals lurk from the lush vegetation: the fleshy silhouette of a lion, painted with a thick layer of paint, emerges from the so-called Kilimanjaro hill in Wrocław ( Wedding Night); a monkey is looking at us from the oak on Sucha Street. In this sense, the subject of Konieczna’s paintings is probably closer to the category of “imagined landscape,” while the colour palette and the manner of painting trigger associations with the emotional painting of post-impressionists and Fauvists.

If No Bird Makes a Nest, We Will Be Able to Visit the Tree Crown

It is worth noting that the Locus Amoenus series was largely created en plein air. Smaller works were created outdoors, while larger paintings were done in the studio on the basis of sketches made in nature. The decision to paint in nature influences the expressiveness and composition of the works – the canvas becomes a place of bold painting gestures. The artist rejects the photographic way of looking at wildlife and thus shortens the distance between the viewer and nature, which in recent times has been viewed mostly through the camera lens. The fact that the paintings were done at the turn of the year allowed Konieczna to closely observe nature in its various transitional states: streaks of paint running down the canvas make the branches of a dry tree literally melt away (Area for Rent for a Warehouse or Other Services), while the crown of the Guide Oak in full bloom resembles an atmospheric phenomenon, shining against the blurred architectural elements.
While working on the project, Konieczna used large canvases and a panoramic composition (a format that was patented by Robert Barker to fully reflect the beauty of the natural landscape before it was widely used by painters of historical and battle scenes), and a method of combining canvases (allowing the artist to work outdoors on individual parts of the picture, despite the large scale; to avoid going back far in the history of art, suffice it to recall Hockney’s ways of working on landscapes from the early 2000s).

For Konieczna, Pleasant Place was an opportunity to return not only to nature, but also to traditional arts. Although the artist graduated in Painting, she devoted a significant part of her practice to performance. Irrespective of the field, however, all her artistic activities are extremely coherent. The theme of nature has permeated her practice since she was a student; her performances are as colourful and painterly as her paintings, while the paintings are just as vivid and emotive as her performances.

Land for Rent for a Warehouse or Other Services

The works from the Locus Amoenus series invite the viewer to experience the spectacle of nature and observe the tensions at the intersection of nature, architecture and man. They rekindle our imagination of nonexistent urban gardens and reawaken our longing for green enclaves in the concrete cityscape.

The series of Monika Konieczna’s latest paintings is accompanied by a film documenting her outdoor work. In one of the shots, we see the artist in an uninteresting setting typical of many Polish cities – in a small square next to a busy petrol station. It is hard not to be surprised that this place could have become an inspiration for a lush, colourful landscape.
As we know (mainly thanks to art) – looking is not always the same as seeing.

*the subtitles in the text were borrowed from the titles of paintings from the Locus Amoenus series

Text: Anna Stec

Monika Konieczna

Born in Wrocław in 1978. Painter and performer, graduate of and lecturer in the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław.
In her creative practice she draws on myths, archetypes and rituals, approaching them in a new, uniquely individual order, referring to what is common through the personal.
She is interested in the memory of place as well as individual and collective memory. Since her studies at the Academy, the motif of nature and the related cycle of life and death have constituted important threads in her artistic work.
Her artistic statements are made using visual installations in space, performance, collage.
She lives and works in Wrocław.

monikakonieczna.weebly.com

 

Created under the City of Wrocław scholarship programme.

That moment when you haggle with reality – you wish it were different, but it isn’t. But what if you really tried? Bought some cryptocurrency, joined a pyramid scheme, started to sell a miracle diet?

Attempts to overcome the confines of reality can take various forms. Sometimes we look for mental shortcuts, such as manifestation, positive or wishful thinking. In search of a miracle, we are tempted to ask for divine help, learn secret knowledge, sign a pact with a metaphysical force or being, which is usually burdened with serious risks. Dealing with the devil has tragic consequences – the price is higher than the benefits, and the ultimate loss is part of the story.

The works by Veronika Hapchenko, Paweł Olszewski and Alicja Pakosz illustrate a fascination with these desperate attempts to take shortcuts: everyday clashes of dreams with reality, small personal dramas, tempting illusions, projections of fantasies, quasi-theories and the existence of symbolic systems and occult movements in a seemingly rational world.
A reference to the vivid quote from Frank Herbert’s Dune in the title invokes the popular wisdom that warns against believing in silver bullets.

In a series of small paintings, which are typical of her everyday artistic practice, Alicja Pakosz uses pareidolia – a mental phenomenon that compels us to see familiar objects in random shapes. She illustrates attempts to enter into a private dialogue with reality by perceiving objective, random states of affairs as deliberate actions subject to negotiation and moral evaluation, as if interacting with another person or being. It is like trying to argue with the facts, which only makes matters worse for the arguer. As assumed by the artist, individual works making up the series can be subjectively interpreted by the viewer, but there is also a story behind each of them.

Extraordinary events and twists of fate often became part of popular culture and folk legends as manifestations of the Evil One. Otherwise, something like this could not have happened, could it?
Dealing with the devil is sometimes akin to autosuggestion. After all, we never know whether the pact has actually been concluded. Perhaps this is why it used to be so important to sign it with blood? Entering into deals with “evil forces” usually entails a disproportionately high price – a punishment for a moment of (promised) power or overcoming adversities in mortal life.

Veronika Hapchenko’s works come from her graduation series devoted to occult practices in the USSR: From Helena Blavatsky, a populariser of this kind of esoteric practices in Tsarist Russia in the second half of the 19th century, to the partially confirmed influence of occult practices on USSR dignitaries and attempts to use these movements in international diplomacy, to Trotsky’s private bodyguard known as Red Devil, who was wounded over thirty times and always returned to service.

Paweł Olszewski looks for simple expectations and dreams confronted with information noise and a multi-level language of communication. Overstimulation, or the effort put into weeding out fake contents, can result in a peculiar delirium in which facts are barely distinguishable from projection, and that which is obvious becomes an unattainable dream.

curator: Antoni Burzyński

artists:

Alicja Pakosz
Born in Tychy in 1996. She lives and works in Krakow. A graduate of the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow in the studio of Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk. In 2018/2019 she studied at Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg as part of the Erasmus + programme.

Paweł Olszewski
Born in Tarnów in 1996. He studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, in the Painting Studio of Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk and the Interdisciplinary Studio of Grzegorz Sztwiertnia and Zbigniew Sałaj, and at the Universität der Künste Berlin in the studio of Prof. Ina Weber as part of an international exchange programme. He works with painting, installation and objects.

Veronika Hapchenko
Born in Kiev in 1995. From 2013, she studied Stage Design at the National University of Cinema and Television in Kiev. In 2015, she began studies at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, in the Painting Studio of Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk and the Video and Photography Studio of Prof. Grzegorz Sztwiertnia and Prof. Zbigniew Sałaj. In 2019, as part of a student exchange programme, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the Post-conceptual Art Studio of Prof. Marina Grzinic.
At the moment I’m focused on researching the origins of the October Revolution and the esoteric and occult groups and motifs revived at the time, which had a significant impact on the revolutionists, artists, theatre directors, writers and poets. This taboo topic reveals the probable events and activities of people directly involved in the events of 1917.

“If Wishes…”

KubaParis
https://kubaparis.com/if-wishes-were-fishes-wed-all-cast-nets/

Tzvetnik
https://tzvetnik.online/article/if-wishes-were-fishes-we-d-all-cast-nets-group-show-at-krupa-gallery-wroclaw

Saliva.live
https://www.instagram.com/p/CT6tvmTInYb/

The Krupa Gallery Summer Stage is a series of exhibitions and accompanying cultural events held during the holiday season in the gallery’s temporary seat on the Old Town Boulevard in Wrocław. The programme focuses on the presentation of young artists and new, interesting phenomena in art.

The project emerged out of the desire and need to look for solutions that would promote and popularise contemporary art and actively support artists’ work and development. The purpose of the initiative is also to promote cooperation between the private sector and the field of culture and art.

The Krupa Gallery Summer Stage is organised in cooperation with the Makima Group. Selected works featured at the exhibitions will be purchased for the Krupa Gallery Foundation collection.

EXHIBITIONS:

9.07 – 22.08. 2021
Veronika Hapchenko, Paweł Olszewski, Alicja Pakosz
If Wishes Were Like Fish, Everyone Would Put Nets
Curator: Antoni Burzyński

24.07 -22.08.2021
Monika Konieczna
Locus Amoenus (Pleasant Place)
Curator: Anna Stec

September 2021
TIFF Festival

Sorry, this entry is only available in Polish.

Krupa Gallery – 04.06-25.06
Plac Jana Pawła II 14, 50-043 Wrocław

The Polish title of the exhibition, Przyjemność Obcowania, translates directly to The Pleasure of Experiencing. Pleasure derives from the Polish word which means to take in, to receive, whereas experience has much to do with being present. Therefore, the pleasure of experiencing, whether it is in art or sex, has much to do with being present and being able to receive. There is something intimate and simultaneously ambiguous in the process – experiencing pleasure requires bringing something in, allowing something to take place inside of us, but also carries the risk of reaction, opening up to an unknown feeling or impulse – something distinctive for both art and sexual pleasure. Art and pleasure both rely strongly on relation, touch, sensuality, letting the recipient see and feel something personal and often mysterious, which derives from the imagination of the creator. Finally, it entails reciprocity. To a certain extent, art and pleasure are much alike.

We present a journal of pleasure perceived differently by seventeen contemporary Polish artists. Pleasure in different forms, shapes and sizes, seen in the context of voyeurism, exhibitionism, fetishism, the body, emotions, magic, nature. Presented works often reflect intimate, private experiences, but also demonstrate pleasure experienced in public, online – accessible pleasure. Being naked and nudity. Demanding pleasure and shy attempts to find it in an intimate relationship, with someone or with ourselves. Pleasure approached with caution, spontaneity or maturity. Pleasure received or pleasure given.

This vast idea became an opportunity to build a testimony of pleasure in its full spectrum of emotions, relations and contexts. It was our conscious choice to gather diverse, often contrasting works – together, they spark a new, stimulating chance to talk about sensuality and sexuality and, in consequence, to talk about sexual education. A chance much needed in Polish public discourse these days.

Everyone has the right to pleasure. It is conveyed in The Declaration of Sexual Rights. Without pleasure, we struggle to go through the day, it is impossible to endure times of crisis. Pleasure is a substantial element of our wellbeing, a crucial part of our physical and spiritual life and, as a result, one of the most natural ways to find happiness. That is why it is an essential part of sexual education and the heart of this exhibition.

Artists:

Adam Adach, Zuzanna Bartoszek, Przemek Branas, Martyna Czech, Pola Dwurnik, Teresa Gierzyńska, Aneta Grzeszykowska i Jan Smaga, Krzysztof Jung, Magdalena Karpińska, Katarzyna Korzeniecka, Róża Litwa, Marta Nadolle, Karol Radziszewski, Jadwiga Sawicka, Mikołaj Sobczak, Łukasz Stokłosa, Konrad Żukowski

Katowice, Galeria Szara – 07.05-28.05
ul. Misjonarzy Oblatów MN 4, 40-129 Katowice

Wrocław, Krupa Gallery – 04.06-25.06
Plac Jana Pawła II 14, 50-043 Wrocław

Krupa Art Foundation will be a new, independent centre devoted to contemporary art. While operating from Wrocław, it will promote new phenomena in art in Poland and elsewhere.

The seat of the Krupa Art Foundation is emerging in the very centre of Wrocław, in a tenement house once occupied by the Dresdner Bank and the Under the Golden Cup department store. The establishment of an art foundation marks a new stage in the history of the building and adds a new value to the space of the Market Square in Wrocław, thus contributing to the city’s cultural life. The foundation proposes a new model for the functioning of artistic institutions in Poland, based primarily on private patronage.

The foundation was founded by Piotr and Sylwia Krupa, businesspeople and art lovers from Wrocław. Their passion for contemporary culture has prompted them to establish a new institution whose mission is to support artists, promote intellectual exchange and popularise the achievements of outstanding Polish artists. This model of supporting culture leaves plenty of room for independent artistic and research activities.

The foundation will present both works of Polish art of the 20th and 21st centuries from the private collection of Sylwia and Piotr Krupa as well as a programme of exhibitions and events devoted to the most recent phenomena in art.

The permanent exhibition will feature some of the most outstanding works of Polish art created since the 1940s, complementing in this way the canon presented in Wrocław museums.

Exhibitions and projects devoted to contemporary art and culture in Poland and abroad will be presented in the temporary project space, expanding the field of artistic experimentation.

An important aspect of the Krupa Art Foundation’s mission is to disseminate knowledge about art through educational activities, debates and lectures about contemporary culture.

The opening of the Krupa Art Foundation seat in the Market Square in Wrocław is scheduled for the second half of 2023.

Smell is one of the most primal senses – it recognises the chemical composition of the environment, of what objects in our vicinity physically consist of. Having been pushed to the background by visual culture, it is still associated with the most intimate experiences. It evokes strong and direct associations, although they are often a bit blurred – our language used to describe olfactory sensations is much poorer than that of the visible things.

The Spot is a small, cosy place in which this intimate experience comes to the fore. It is a closed fragment of space, accessible by the internet, which could be called the home of virtual fragrances – an interior that exudes the atmosphere of peace and ritual.

The Spot is called an online experience because it is a digital work that could be potentially used through several digital media. It is available on a website that can be accessed through the browser of a computer or mobile phone; in the future, it will be possible to see it in VR goggles. However, these seemingly diverse media do not affect the meaning of this work.

Experiencing The Spot via the internet problematises the conventionality and illustrativeness of virtual spaces, which are often even called worlds. In this sense, The Spot is an illustration presenting that which is unattainable by means of something that is at hand. It triggers something akin to a reaction to a smell, although it does not use this sense in any way. It is an animation projected onto an object, which makes us believe that it is about olfactory experiences.

Despite the promises, immersion in virtual experiences has not yet surpassed the conventional theatre contract, which requires the viewer to pretend to be convinced by the illusion on stage.

Smell is not a means of interaction in virtual reality yet (notwithstanding the difficulty of conveying it to the user). All we can do is change the position of objects in a simulated space.

The default nose does not react to smell, but to the position of the object, which in this case is the drawing of the incense. If it was replaced with an image of a burning branch, with the character’s hands moving to and away from it, we would have the impression of reacting to “heat.” The Spot illustrates and reveals this problem.

However, does it bother us when contemplating this place? Does it break the impression of being concentrated on one sense, on a mysterious combination of body and peace? Perhaps not. It depends solely on our decision and the extent to which we are prepared to accept the convention.

thespot.piotrkopik.com

Piotr Kopik
Multimedia artist working in installation, video, machinima, animation, VR and performances, as well as painting and drawing. Graduate of the Faculty of Painting Department at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (diploma completed in the studio of Professor Jaroslaw Modzelewski). Co-founder of the szu szu group. He has exhibited (i.a.) at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, BWA Wrocław, Museum of Art in Lodz, BWA Zielona Gora, Wyspa Art Institute in Gdansk, Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw, Kunsthaus Dresden, Bat-Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism in Bat-Yam, rotor in Graz, Lokal_30 Gallery in Warsaw. His films have been shown (i.a.) at FILE in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Planete+ Doc Film Festival, Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, at the Muranow Cinema in Warsaw and the TVP Kultura television station. Artist in Residence stipendist (Progr, Berno). Reciepient of the Mloda Polska (Young Poland) scholarship program. He runs the 3D & Virtual Occurrences Studio I at the Faculty of Media Art at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. Lives and works in Warsaw.

http://piotrkopik.com/
https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/piotr-kopik

This is a mechanism by which it is possible to remain in the place that you live, without exposing others or being exposed, while still being able to experience the presence of resistance in three dimensions. In my own private apartment, you will be able to experience the encounter between body and law while managing to come out without a single scratch. Your guilt will accompany you throughout the spaces as you digest the resistance digitally. This is the possibility of staying in isolation and being present in all places in the real world.

Over the last few months, large-scale protests have been ongoing in Israel. A number of organizations, with the main one being the “Black Flags” movement, protest against a range of issues: against the Prime Minister, where the protesters are demanding his resignation due to the indictment against him; against the erosion of state institutions, emphasising harm to the rule of law system; against the treatment of the economic crisis created in Israel due to the corona pandemic; protests by sectors affected by the economic crisis, including the self-employed, employees, teachers, social workers, restaurateurs and people in the fields of sports and culture. Many civilians were injured due to police violence.

SEE THE PROJECT > thevirtualcanvas.site

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Regev Amrani (1988) is a video artist and sculptor and a graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design (BFA) in the Fine Art Department 2016. In changing settings, Amrani combines sculptural installations, sound, video works, and autobiographical information with contemporary social and political situations.
On the surface of many of his works there is a desire to distance masculine violence and sexuality. The ideas of impulse and desire are disinfected, purified and cleansed through various mechanical filtering objects. These mechanisms dismantle the physical experience of the body with the help of these filters.

The House of Protest is a part of The Virtual Canvas online exhibition.

and–akter. rehearsals of escape
an online-participatory performance by Hanna Wildow, Alva Willemark and Tony Karlsson Savci

date: March 13th, 2021, The Virtual Canvas Project (Krupa Gallery) / world wide web
time: 5.30 pm, GMT+1 (Sweden)
60 minutes, zoom

pre-registration is necessary:
https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSeqrDXXg96O9R…/viewform

You are invited into a breathing, humming pine forest called Gränseskogen.
A reservoir of unspoilt trees in the deepness of a rural Swedish mountain chain.
Voices offer you proposals for how to orient your lungs.
An ambient landscape lulling you through eight acts of bodyings, feelings, breathings, languagings, voicings, borderings, rootings and deathinings.
and–akter imagines other ways of being together; a sphere for moving air between one body and another, for making sounds, and listening.
For everyone with a breathing body.
——————————————–
and–akter. hosts a limited number of participants, thus pre-registration is necessary and you are kindly asked to only register if you can participate in the entire performance (45 minutes + 15 minutes of introduction). You will need a computer or a screening device, an internet connection and an image of a forest. The performance can be taken part from wherever you are. Further information and instructions will be sent out upon registration.
——————————————–
“and–akter. rehearsals of escape” is a shared work by Hanna Wildow, Alva Willemark and Tony Karlsson Savci, made together with Johan Wahlberg (sounds), Adam Nilsson (DOP), and Litia Perta (wording council). Live technical assistance by Dick Hedlund and Erik Malmsten, graphic guidance by Moa Edlund, breath and movement counseling by Sara Haylett-Utberg.
“and–akter. rehearsals of escape” is presented as a series of iterations and propagations. The first iteration was shown at Galleri BOX (Gothenburg) in August 2020, The Virtual Canvas Project (Krupa Gallery, Poland) presents the second iteration in March 2021, and in May 2021 the third will be presented by Rah Residency (Tehran). In September 2021, and–akter will premier as an IRL-performance at Weld (Stockholm), and in October 2021 the sculptural elongation det är ett rop på hjälp (it is a cry for help) opens at Eldhunden (Stockholm), followed by another performance iteration at Galleri Verkligheten (Umeå) in November 2021.

With support by The Swedish Arts Grants Committeé, Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation and in cooperation with KULTURENS. Special thanks to Hackås Maskin och Kultur, Elektronmusikstudion EMS, Mats Erlandsson, Eric Danger Österlin, Ashik Zaman, Alida Ivanov, Anna Koch, Megan Black, Anna Stec, Mahmoud Maktabi, Gustav Lejelind, Ellen Skafvenstedt, Daniel Josefsson, Sebastian Adolfsson, Rolf Anderzon and Simon Mogren.

The project “Das Nicht nichtet” is about the growing fatigue with the void, which feels even more wearing during the second lockdown. The presentation contains five objects to be found between an abundance of an empty space.
The new series of digital drawings created by Maess, who in her artistic practice usually uses the more traditional mediums of drawing and painting, reflects on the feeling of constant tiredness and uncertainty that accompanies the pandemic.

* Das Nicht nichtet / Nothingness nothings / Nictwo się nicestwi
quotation from “What Is Metaphysics?” a lecture by the philosopher Martin Heidegger,
first presented to the faculties of the University of Freiburg on July 24, 1929 as inaugural address

SEE THE PROJECT  >  www.thevirtualcanvas.site

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Maess Anand is a Polish artist based in Düsseldorf. After graduating from Warsaw Elsner School of Music, she graduated with MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and was recipient of a scholarship at the Escola Superior de Artes e Design in Porto, Portugal. In 2012, Maess Anand was nominated to the Grand Prix at the FID Prize Paris, and in 2013 she was shortlisted to the Strabag International Art Award in Vienna, Austria. Amongst others, she exhibited at, Museo di Santa Cecilia in Rome (2010), CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw (2010), Program Gallery in Warsaw (2011), Wroclaw Contemporary Museum (2013), Galeria Miejska Arsenal in Poznan (2013), BWA Sokól in Nowy Sacz (2013), The Starak Family Foundation in Warsaw, The Drawing Center in New York (2014), Polish Institute in Budapest (2015), Kasia Michalski Gallery in Warsaw, (2015), Trestle Gallery in New York (2016), Warsaw Austrian Cultural Forum (2019), Equity Gallery in New York, IK Projects in Lima, Peru (2019) and at Biennale de la Biche on deserted island near Guadeloupe (2017).

Maess Anand was a recipient of numerous fellowships including: Leipzig International Art Programme in Leipzig (2014) Virginia Center for Creative Arts (2017), Residency Unlimited in New York (2018) and The Corporation of Yaddo in Saratoga Springs (2018). With Alex Urso, Maess Anand curated Biennale de La Biche; the smallest biennale in the world held on a deserted island near Guadeloupe. The event has been reviewed by The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Artnet, Art Review, Observer (2017). Her drawings were presented in Vice Magazine, FUKT Magazine for Contemporary Drawing and The Lancet Oncology.

maess.eu

Das Nichts nichtet is a part of The Virtual Canvas online exhibition.

In December 2019, Laura Ginès and Pepon Meneses co-directed a video essay entitled “Jugar al carrer” ( “Playing in the Street” ) for “Soy Camara” – an online TV programme produced by Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB).
“Urban spaces of play are designated as separate zones, segregating them from the bustle and chaos of the city. This separation destroys the very nature of play and what it has always been: learning to live together and relate with the world. This episode of ‘Soy Cámara’ is a nostalgic celebration of the street as a place of growing up, something which the zoning of cities may no longer provide” – explains the artists.
Published exactly one year later, as a part of a collage created by Laura Ginès for “The Virtual Canvas” website, the video gains new meanings placed in a new context of the pandemic reality.
What will be the long term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on public space? Will the street remain a place for free play and spontaneous social interaction? If so, in what ways?

“Playing in the Street” (“Jugar al carrer”), 2019
Produced by: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
Directors: Laura Ginès and Pepon Meneses
Editing: Laura Ginès and Taller Estampa
‘Soy cámara’ team: Víctor Diago
Proofreader: Jaume Ortolà
English subtitles: Cruz Rodríguez Juiz

SEE THE PROJECT  >  www.thevirtualcanvas.site

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Laura Ginès is and an independent filmmaker based in Barcelona. A graduate in Illustration, Art and Design. Some of her films are part of Xcèntric Archive, the experimental program of CCCB (The Barcelona Center of Contemporary Culture), and they have been screened in specialised cinemas like the Cinemàteque of San Francisco, Anthology Film Archives of New York or Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid.
She runs her own art in motion studio. She is a lecturer in storytelling in Elisava, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering. She is also a member of Cranc, a team of filmmakers that organizes experimental film projections in an old printing house.

lauragines.com/

Playing in the Street is a part of The Virtual Canvas online exhibition.

The images used in “Covid Playgrounds” were taken in Warsaw during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown (April 2020), when several restrictions on the use of public space and social distancing were introduced to protect the public health.

Using the model of the popular children street game hopscotch (and incorporating “heaven” and “hell” fields which are typical elements to the Polish version of the game), Post Noviki explores the ironic, yet frightening development of the public space during a pandemic.
The work invites the viewer to contemplate on how COVID-19 will affect the way we use and perceive the public space and what the future of urban planning and city design in a post-COVID-19 world could be.

SEE THE PROJECT  > www.thevirtualcanvas.site

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Post Noviki is a studio established by Marcin Nowicki and Katarzyna Nestorowicz, based in Warsaw, Poland.
Studio’s signature is a post critical approach to graphic design and the idea of constant redefining the borders of wide-ranging practice.
P-Noviki create works across various media, generally in close dialogue with artists and curators.

P-Noviki projects have been published, in IDPure, Slanted, Introducing Culture Identities (Gestalten), Pretty Ugly (Gestalten), It’s Nice That. They have served as external consultants at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. They lectured at art schools and universities across Europe and Asia, run workshops at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, displayed their commissioned and self-initiated project both in museums of contemporary art as well as graphic design shows, blurring boundaries between the disciplines.

noviki.net/

Covid Playgrounds is a part of The Virtual Canvas online exhibition.

Satisfying the housing needs of the society is one of the basic tasks of the modern world. Yet at the same time, the world is getting louder and more cramped than ever before. Regardless of what we want or plan, the space for rest is merging with the place of work.

The comfort of home is gradually commodified. Workplaces in co-working spaces and large corporations are made to look homely, while laptops are often marketed as devices to be used from the comfort of your own bed. Once given the possibility to work remotely, paid work has crept into the space of home. We work from the bedroom, the kitchen table, and the toilet.*

*Aleksandra Gordowy, Dom jako przestrzeń produktywna i nieproduktywna [Home as a productive and unproductive space], Bęc Zmiana, 2020

The text used in the work entitled “Compression” is based on articles in The Guardian describing the housing problems of British people during the Sars-Covid-19 epidemic.

SEE THE PROJECT  > www.thevirtualcanvas.site

ABOUT THE ARTISTS 

Why Quit (Karolina Balcer & Iwona Ogrodzka)
Collaboration, acquiring knowledge, the power of friendship and community building are important factors of our work. We have been working together closely since 2016, and the Why Quit initiative, launched in 2019, is the result of our experience, including the establishment of the bottom-up Wykwit Gallery (2015-2019), the Wykwitex Group (since 2017) and many joint projects, e.g. during our residency in KulturKontakt in Vienna (2018). Why Quit is a nomadic initiative which, apart from acting in a duet, attracts creative people to critically comment on social, political and economic situations. We believe that art can be one of the tools to put pressure on the structures that make up the harmful system.

why-quit.com

Compression is a part of The Virtual Canvas online exhibition.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The project “The Virtual Canvas” is an online exhibition that develops between November 2020 and April 2021.

12 artists (and artistic collectives) from around the world have been invited to share their different perspectives, reflections, solutions and/or comments on the world’s crises – referring to both the past and future, to the recent lockdown(s) and the new reality of a pandemic.

Each artist receives a space within the website, which they will be able to add to, design, shape and arrange, treating the web as a canvas.
Every month a new artistic project will appear on “The Virtual Canvas” website responding to the previous artists’ pieces. The project is structured like a chain: initiated first by artists responding to the crises, the following artists will create pieces responding to this first input, as well as including their own perspective.
Each new contribution will develop the narrative further until a collective work is created, coloured by many voices singing in many mediums.

Various artistic projects collected in the virtual exhibition space are an attempt to build an artistic dialogue and share the insights of creatives experiencing the current crises at various latitudes.
This multi-voiced story will change and take different courses depending on the participating artists, on the present situation and on our present condition. As the project evolves, the platform becomes an international common diary and a testimony of the time.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

The crises have exposed the structural inequalities within society, revealing the precarious imbalance at its heart. Yet a common factor uniting these disparities is a global state of suspension, uncertainty and anticipation – an atmosphere that seems to be typical of our time.

Can this global sense of uncertainty be utilized to rethink social structures? To achieve the unthinkable, one must un-think. Can this explosion of the status quo provide this opportunity? How can we (or is it possible to) emulate creation through forms of destruction?

Moreover, the physical restrictions of lockdown have more acutely exposed the new paradigm of mind/body/virtual, where the age-old distinction between the freedoms of the mind and limitations of the body has become transposed into the virtual. Now more than ever, it is the potential of the seemingly infinite space of the Internet that collides with the increasing number of physical barriers in the real world. Yet, which reality has a greater influence on our mind, its freedom, creative processes and artistic thought? Is our mind and creative thinking shaped more by limitations in the real, physical world or by virtual, seemingly endless opportunities?

ARTISTS

Why Quit (Karolina Balcer, Iwona Ogrodzka)

Renen

Post Noviki

Laura Ginès

Maess

Regev Amrani

Dimple B. Shah

Kino Manual (Aga Jarząb, Maciek Bączyk)

Hanna Wildow, Alva Willemark, Tony Karlsson Savci

Magda Franczak, Ludomir Franczak

Blanca Arias

Lara + Countervisions

SEE THE PROJECT’S WEBSITE  > www.thevirtualcanvas.site

ABOUT THE ORGANISERS
Curators:

Megan Black has run several multidisciplinary art projects with a focus on collective creating in Berlin, as well as in Tbilisi and Gori in collaboration with MasterPeace in Georgia. She studied at the University of Oxford, where she graduated with the best performance of 2020 in German Language and Literature. Currently she is based in Berlin, working for the project space bi’bak and freelance editing, translating and creating.

Anna Stec is an art historian (University of Wrocław, Poland) and art curator. For many years she was associated with the Art Transparent Foundation; she was one of the curators of the SURVIVAL Art Review (between 2014 and 2018) and project coordinator and curator at the Mieszkanie Gepperta Gallery (2012- 2017). She has authored several texts on art published in magazines and exhibition catalogues. Currently she is based in Barcelona (Spain). She collaborates as an art curator and project coordinator with Krupa Gallery (Wrocław, Poland).

Katarzyna Mlynczak-Sachs holds a PhD in political science but she decided to follow her passion and abandon the academic life for culture management. She was responsible for the coordination of international relations in the context of Wroclaw 2016 European Capital of Culture. She has been involved in many international projects, such as amongst others the Wroclaw exhibition “Dispossession” during Venice Biennale 2015. Since 2017, she has been managing Krupa Gallery, an art space and concept born in Wroclaw to promote artists and engage audiences into artistic exhibitions.

The project is implemented with members of the Bosch Alumni Network and in cooperation with Krupa Gallery Foundation.

Valentine’s Day is approaching – the celebration of love. Not all lovers, however, feel joy and butterflies in their stomachs. Love is also disappointment, abandonment, separation, loneliness. The latest series of works by Pola Dwurnik entitled “Unhappy Ending” consists of drawings, gouaches and lithographs telling about the end of love, the pain of separation, despair and longing. They were inspired by Ania Malinowska’s poems on the same subject, written in the last few years. Both artists analyse the morphology of the broken heart and the accompanying frustration, tenderly and even with a bit of humour. They avoid pathos and the heavy drama of the genre. The poems and drawings make up a beautiful, poetic artbook “Unhappy Ending. Poems for the Broken/Hearted”, which is about to hit the stands.

On the first day of the exhibition, on Saturday 13 February, we invite you to a meeting with the authors of the book.

Entire Paris in a blue haze, like in spirit – this quote from Różewicz was to be the motto of the exhibition. But when I opened the book to verify it, it wasn’t where I remembered it was. So maybe I was wrong. I may have mixed up some fragments. Perhaps it wasn’t Paris at all, and perhaps not spirit (denatured alcohol? Formalin?). Perhaps it was not even Różewicz. But that’s how my memory worked – it combined some bits in the context of the planned exhibition and its subject, and a “quote from Różewicz” came out.

Contradicting the feverish ordering of archives, there are the workings of memory – attempts to recreate that which has already been experienced on the basis of whatever shreds remain. Such memories are necessarily co-created by the present self.

On the one hand, they extract the essence of the meaning of events. They are like phenomena immersed in formaldehyde, which, removed from their former context, assume new meanings and look at us as if from the other side of the mirror.

On the other hand, this is a process of reproducing the missing elements on the basis of the preserved fragments, resembling the work of a conservator or an archaeologist who recreates an entire artefact from a tiny piece. It is a simulation of an imagined whole, with guesses and mistakes. Sometimes, the reconstructed work surpasses the small finding, adding more than there was before. But the authenticity of each such creation is supported by the authenticity of the original part. Although this loan could be unsecured.

However, knowing the nature of this process, it is difficult to expect faithfulness to some original. The works by Filip Rybkowski and Krzysztof Grzybacz use similar mechanisms to talk about things that may have existed or happened.

—

Filip Rybkowski’s works revolve around the relationship between the original and its derivative – a copy, representation, reconstruction. However, the artist inscribes an immanent error in this relationship. Sometimes, he reconstructs things that are not worth reconstructing. At other times, the process of reproduction overwhelms the original – a small fragment grows into an exaggerated, imagined idea of the prototype. Such imitation is doomed to failure because it reveals its own artificiality. The potential for deconstruction is inherent in it from the beginning.

Rybkowski creates a vicious circle of representation. First, he creates imitations of materials. A very Baroque idea, if not for the fact that alongside artificial marble there are also fake tiles or PVC. He then undermines the very division into “the real thing” and “copy” by combining fragments of found materials with their representations. His decisions revolve somewhere between examining this division and denying its usefulness in a disturbing manner.

Apart from his earlier works, the exhibition also features projects from the new series Sediment Studies. It also seems to be a reconstruction – but this time of something that may happen in the future. The painting hints that it comes from beyond the Anthropocene epoch – stalactites can grow up to several thousand years. However, despite the masterful mimeticism, even this painting is exposed and suspended in a bubble of obvious illusion.

—

The poetics of Krzysztof Grzybacz’s paintings is fairy-tale like, clearly kept in the convention of “magical thinking.” They could be afterimages that are left of sleep, single frames of memories that intently stare at us.

His pictures are as sensitive as our secret thoughts. Flowers hug each other, objects seek closeness. They show the relationships we sometimes imagine between them, or our own feelings and desires that we project on them. Flowers in December, Will you love me magically, Fade Into You.

When trying to interpret the stories contained in the paintings, we are under the impression of having retained this childish ability to not distinguish between what is animated and unanimated, worthy of attention and unimportant. We grasp the impressions and associations that arise around certain things or views, and find the courage to describe them. The entire description does not take place through the narrative, the painted plot, but mainly in the painting itself, in the chosen technique.

Krzysztof Grzybacz (b. 1993)

He has graduated from Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk’s studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.

His paintings combine intimacy and extraordinariness, evoking the impression of glow and peacefulness. They seem to depict excerpts from longer stories or scenes from the unusual life of objects. In his practice, he occasionally combines painting with objects or other techniques. He lives and works in Krakow.

He has participated in individual and collective exhibitions, including: By Mail Today Eleven Thoughts, Six of Them Were About Love (in duet with Zuzanna Bartoszek, Serce Człowieka, Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2020); Fix (Wolne Pokoje, Fundacja Artystów Kolonia, Gdańsk 2019); Krakers Cracow Art Week 2019 festival, 44^th Painting Biennale Bielska Jesień 2019; during the lockdown caused by the covid-19 pandemic, he took part in projects such as The Trouble with Double (Mozilla Hubs, VR exhibition), Exhibition for Your Apartment (Dawid Radziszewski Gallery).

Filip Rybkowski (b. 1991)

In 2015, he graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. His works from this period transcend the traditional boundaries of painting, entering the field of mosaic, objet trouvé and installation.

He uses various media: painting, installation, video, photography. He puts together the poetics of the fragment, juxtaposing original artefacts with reconstructions and images. He is interested in the problematic status of “authenticity” and the processes of historical construction of memory.

In his most recent works, the basic tool he uses is the critical act of reconstruction combined with reflection on the political nature of the gesture of restoration, preservation and conservation.

He has taken part in many exhibitions in Poland and abroad, including Dry Crust and Oceans of Liquid Matter (Horse and Pony Fine Arts, Berlin, 2019), Pets (Bunkier Sztuki, 2018), Scattered Rhymes (XY Gallery, Olomouc, 2018), What About This Abstraction? (Stefan Gierowski Foundation, Warsaw, 2017), individually or in a duet with Emilia Kina, including Innocent Eyes, Weak Arm (Sopa Gallery, Kosice, 2020), Miraż Travel (Wozownia Art Gallery, Toruń, 2019).

Objects and places become authentic and concrete when they are experienced with all senses, actively, reflectively. Some places are devoid of reality, because we know them only from the outside, from a tourist’s perspective, through reading or stories. For many of us, the Wrocław mikvah is such a place. It used to be frequently visited, yet nowadays it is filled with water only a few times a year. It has been an essential place for the Jewish community in Wrocław, unique in terms of architecture, yet it is often absent from the mental maps of the city dwellers, and its ritual function remains vague to them. The mikvah has been a source of fascination to Noa Heyne, an Israeli artist based in Berlin. She has created an installation whose functioning and details refer to the architecture of the mikvah and its history. The work was created from scratch during Heyne’s several-week residence in Wrocław. It is now presented for the first time as one of the elements accompanying the Simcha Jewish Culture Festival.

Noa Heyne’s interactive installation makes the mikvah a physically tangible space. It invites us to the bathhouse and offers an extended experience which engages the senses and triggers more than just visual cognitive processes. The installation is comprised of a hydraulic system and sculptural elements that refer to the surrounding architecture as well as the human body. The hydraulic system holds wooden platforms placed in and around the pool. When the installation is activated by stepping on the platform, the visitor’s weight makes the sculpture move to the accompaniment of the sound of water.
Water plays a fundamental role both in the installation and in the ritual of purification – it is a universal symbol of change and power. Heyne’s object binds both of these meanings together; water set in motion by the pressure makes the floor move. It is possible due to the pipe system hidden under the platforms, inspired by the architectural solutions used in ritual bathhouses, which allows kosher water to be brought into the pool and mixed with ordinary water. The hydraulic system, although invisible, is a crucial element in Heyne’s installation. It enables head-to-toe, multisensory experience that allows us to actually feel the spatial qualities of the mikvah and understand the essence of the place not just through reason.
The installation strongly emphasises the dependence of our spatial orientation on the body posture, whose verticality expresses control over the environment and the gravity. Upright posture also brings a sense of confidence of living in an organised world whose essential part is the ground under our feet – not only as a physical point of reference that is always there, but also as the culturally and psychologically conditioned need for stability. The installation disturbs the pattern of moving forwards and backwards and forces submission to the up-down movement, which triggers associations with being submerged in the waters of the mikvah and literally causes us to lose our foothold. The moving floor introduces a sense of unusualness and destabilisation while referring to accumulated events from the past, or even secrets lurking under the surface. The work evokes sensual experiences, causing the body to adapt to its movement and act accordingly. What results is a kind of sensual harmony and symmetry between the object, space and the participants’ bodies invited to interact with it.

UNDERCURRENT is an intense deep-sea water current which is often imperceptible on the surface. It refers to the invisible power of the seas and oceans, which affects entire ecosystems, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not.

photo & video: Alicja Kielan

At the beginning of the 20th century, Wassily Kandinsky predicted that the art of “tomorrow” would enable us “to grasp the inner appeal of a truly emancipated
colour and form composition,” free from borrowings from the outside world. “A spiritual turn is speeding us on almost violently, now opening the doors to the dissolution of matter,” he wrote in the 1911 treatise On the Spiritual in Art, “it can be said that only a few ‘hours’ separate us from this absolute composition.”
For Kandinski, the creative act was associated with the “principle of innermost necessity” – a work of art is supposed to be an expression of the mystical powers that lie dormant in the artist. He viewed art as an important tool of spiritual practice, indispensable on the path of human development, necessary to “keep the soul at a certain height.”

Justyna Maksajda’s painting does not refer to the outside world; it neither recreates nor comments on the reality around us. Rather, it describes an internal state.
By means of painting, the artist captures a moment of stillness – a state of special concentration in which thought and the fleeting moment materialise thanks to colour and form. The practice of painting thus becomes tantamount to a spiritual practice. And like any other practice, it is inseparably connected with everyday life – it needs attention and focus, regularity and repetition. It is in everyday activities, seemingly trivial and irrelevant, that the artist finds a moment of contemplation. The aforementioned stillness, from which new paintings emerge, evokes associations with the practice of meditation – the art of focusing attention on the here and now. In this sense, Maksajda approaches painting as a spiritual and highly intellectual activity, a combination of intuitive actions and rational procedures – training for the soul and mind.

Kandinsky argued that the spiritual element of art is captured in the subtle relationships between form and colour. These subtleties, resulting from an artistic instinct, can be experienced at various levels in Justyna Maksajda’s painting. First of all, at the formal level, visual and purely aesthetic; but also beyond material categories and physical terms.
When given proper attention, a work of art can allow our mind to go beyond common concepts and develop (as Kandinsky would like) “the ability to see spiritual content in both material and abstract things, because it (…) enriches our lives and is absolutely necessary for our future .”

***

The Krupa Gallery Summer Stage is a series of exhibitions and accompanying cultural events that are organised in cooperation with the Makima Group.
Between June and August 2020, the Krupa Gallery will present three exhibitions of Polish female artists – painters who create abstract works, but adopt very different starting points in their practice.
The exhibitions will be held in the glass pavilion on the revitalised Old Town Boulevard in Wrocław, which will soon become a unique place regularly hosting international art projects.
The Summer Stage emerged out of the desire and need to look for solutions that would promote and popularise contemporary art and actively support artists’ work and development.
The purpose of the initiative is also to promote cooperation between the private sector and the field of culture and art. Some of the featured works will be (or have already been) purchased for the Krupa Gallery collection.

Programme:
26.06‒13.07.2020 | Iza Opiełka
17.07‒18.08.2020 | Magdalena Sadłowska
20.08‒7.09.2020 | Justyna Maksajda

‘Cause I see you
I’ll be your mirror
Lou Reed

The exhibition presents the latest works made by artists associated with the Faculty of Photography at the University of the Arts in Poznań — an environment bringing together a wide range of creative attitudes and approaches. Regardless of the variety of artistic views, the authors are enthusiasts of photography and the richness of new media stemming from it, which is the main means of communication and expression for them. Each work in this exhibition has a potential for artistic reflection on a photographic representation.

Photography has long ceased to be what it is commonly believed to be — it has become a highly mythologised, partly magical, practice. We believe it and do not believe it at the same time, just as if we needed such images. We accept today’s post-photographic representations in order to reject them after a while. These images are traps, simulated views and transmissions of barely possible things, tools meant for temporary mental alterness and organising meanings.

The artists have centred their creative experiences around recognising, analysing, and criticising how photography works and functions. Will they help us understand it by whispering seductively … I’ll be your image?

Artists :
Agnieszka Antkowiak
Michał Bugalski
Sławomir Decyk
Izabela Jurcewicz
Anna Kędziora
Konrad Kuzyszyn
Kate Ngan Wa Ao
Max Radawski
Mateusz Sadowski
Piotr Wołyński

The exhibition is part of the TIFF Festival “Processes”.

Opening houres:
2 – 4.09: 15:00-20:00
5 – 6.09: 12:00-19:00
6 – 22.09:  Wednesday – Saturday: 15:00-19:00

Curatorial tour: 5.09 (Saturday) godz. 17.00

Not many material objects were created as a result of the Wrocław ’70 Visual Arts Symposium – a few scale models, designs of sculptures, urban planning solutions, a catalogue and black-and-white photographs of the exhibition by Tadeusz Rolke. They show smartly dressed people with fashionable hairdos stooping over the exhibits, crossing their arms or touching their cheeks with interest. Others crane their necks to see a sculpture, shuffle their legs, draw on a cigarette or adjust their glasses. Magdalena Sadłowska is interested in this subtle choreography that takes place in the exhibition space. She observes small, barely perceptible yet repetitive gestures. Despite the passage of years, some of them remain universal, from the well-practiced rituals that our bodies follow automatically in everyday situations, such as getting dressed, combing the hair, putting on a watch, to gestures indicating excitement and agitation during important events.

There is some nervousness, sketchiness, trembling in Magdalena Sadłowska’s pastel paintings. They show multiplied bodies, formatted by gestures and fashion. Magdalena is inspired by old Polish lifestyle magazines (e.g. “Przyjaciółka”, “Świat mody”, “Sport”), shop windows of the Hoffland fashion house, how-to books for women living in the People’s Republic of Poland. In her paintings, she copies clothes patterns that used to be attached to newspapers. Today, in the era of mass production and turbocapitalism, they are forgotten relics, but in the sixties or seventies they were highly desirable because they enabled the creation of the most fashionable outfits. Sadłowska’s canvases reproduce these dress patterns or technical drawings from course books for apprentice tailors. She draws intricate maps as if she was writing with chalk on a blackboard. The geometric figures showed the trajectory of movements that had to be made in order to keep up to date with the latest canons of beauty and the metropolitan glitter of modernity. In Magdalena’s paintings, however, they lose their clarity, begin to vibrate and suddenly blur.

In her earlier series of paintings titled “Exerciser”, Sadłowska referred to physical culture, gyms, repetition of movements in pursuit of fitness and perfection. She depicted multiplied figures performing complex acrobatics, moved them around, blurred them, reaching almost a point of abstraction. For Sadłowska, the repetition of physical exercises and clothing patterns is a metaphor for something bigger – creative work, which is based on the monotonous repetition of the painting gesture, repainting, returning to the sketch in pursuit of unattainable perfection. Above all, however, Sadłowska’s work is a metaphor for culture that determines our patterns of behaviour, disciplines individuals and dictates our rhythm. As in modern anthropology of the body, the artist shows people as bodies-objects constructed and modelled by various aspects of social life. Tradition, fashion, city, power, technology – they all construct our bodies, which raises a question about the existence of individuality. Will there be even one unique gesture that we will make while visiting the exhibition? Or will we only copy the repertoire of poses, steps and choreography?

graphic design: Magdalena Jaskułowska

The character and energy of Iza Opiełka’s abstractions speak volumes about the personality of the artist herself. The multi-element compositions are based on bold combinations. The dynamics of the paintings is highlighted not only by the variety of shapes and colours, but also by the titles – “Splash”, “Green Cut-Out” or “Pink Destruction” trigger associations with movement (anybody who knows the artist will confirm that she is always on the move) or change occurring before our eyes. The artist further enhances this effect by leaving the works seemingly unfinished (in the so-called state of non finito).

The very title of the exhibition – “Crush” – can be understood in different ways. On the one hand, it addresses the relationships between the individual elements in the paintings, on the other – it is related to the emotional state of falling in love (as the artist admits, she has been in this state all her life). Last but not least, “Crush” describes the joy of creation, passion and dedication that drive the artist.

But in the case of Iza Opiełka, painting is not only an activity that lets the artist vent her energy. It is also a means of looking for ways to tame it. The artist admits that she strives after balance, both in life and in painting. That is why in her practice she often uses perfect forms, such as circles (especially in the latest paintings), which she later pierces with irregular, sharp shapes. This clash of opposites that permeates Iza Opiełka’s paintings can be understood as an attempt to organise artistic and formal issues, but also as an illustration of various challenges in life.

Iza Opiełka’s practice is first and foremost a combination of youthful energy and temperament with carefully honed skills. The paintings are expressive, but the process of their creation has little to do with impulsive action. “Splash”, for example, is not a result of spontaneous painting gestures, but of repetitive and systematic activities – from sketching and planning the perfect composition using digital tools, through the arduous work of preparing stencils and testing various combinations, to the multi-step process of applying successive layers of paint.
Although the idea for a painting is born in an intuitive way, its development is already a matter of many conscious, thoughtful decisions. The artist’s method of work is an attempt to introduce order, in the sphere of both art and private life.

Meeting with artist & Paweł Jarodzki: 27.06.2020, 5 pm
Bulwar Staromiejski, pl. Jana Pawła II, lok. nr 16, Wrocław

Press:

Vogue.pl: https://www.vogue.pl/a/cykl-wystaw-sceny-letniej-krupa-gallery

A film festival is about watching films; Kasia Kmita watches the festival – and shows it as the exhibition A Horizontal Panorama: Kodras. The presentation consists of just one monumental work. It contains episodes from the past of the New Horizons cinema, festival venues, situations and emotions. Kmita creates a visual representation of the festival by combining various artistic traditions. While referring to the convention of a heroic painting-panorama, she adopts a traditional Polish technique of paper-cutting, which is rooted in folk art, and weaves her narrative by using tools borrowed from the world of comics and film. A Horizontal Panorama: Kodras is an elaborate depiction of the time-space of the New Horizons, in which film stories are intertwined with people’s experiences to present the phenomenon of urban folklore.

It goes without saying: the festival is a spectacle in itself, which contains other spectacles – screenings, personal interaction, events, conversations about life on the screen and life around the cinema. It is a peculiar arrangement of psycho-geographic coordinates, a territory spreading between the screening rooms, foyer, the cinema cafeteria, streets navigated in a hurry to make it on time for the film; between the cinema, the Arsenal festival club, and all those bars and pubs where people eat and drink after the screenings – from Mleczarnia to Karavan, from Odrapany to Surowiec. The festival involves fiction and facts, it has its venues, flavours and smells; it is an elaborate construction that has its culinary, political and, of course, erotic dimension.

This multidimensionality cannot be grasped in a single frame, so Kasia Kmita has chosen a panorama – after all, we are in Wrocław.
Historically, panoramas used to depict battle themes. The Panorama of Racławice, one of Wrocław’s most popular tourist attractions, is no exception here. Drawing on the convention of monumental painting, Kmita maintains the tradition of wide-angle view, spatiality, complexity and semantic richness of the classic panorama, but she departs from its heroic poetics.
One could say that it is a double departure.

Firstly, participation in a film festival is no heroism – it’s pure pleasure. Kasia Kmita, a native Wrocław dweller who has taken part in the festival for years, pays homage to not just the festival, but to the pleasure of participating in it.

Secondly, Kmita uses kodra – a traditional folk art technique. A kodra is a unique type of a multi-layer figurative cut-out that was developed by the inhabitants of the Łowicz region in the late 19th century. This form of art traditionally depicted customs, rituals and celebrations. Kmita employs this technique to present a contemporary fragment of city life, but she remains faithful to the spirit of this tradition. The festival also has its customs and rituals – it is a phenomenon of urban folklore.

It is said that the festival is a special, living institution that is co-created by the audience. Kasia Kmita turns this idea into action. As a devoted fan of the festival and an artist from Wrocław, she literally creates her own festival – a panoramic image of the New Horizons, a phenomenon at the intersection of film fiction, urban space and social reality.

Press:

Girls Room: http://www.girlsroom.pl/zycie/7854-ciecie-kasia-kmita-obserwuje-festiwal-nowe-horyzonty

Magazyn Szum: https://magazynszum.pl/kazde-wydarzenie-ma-swoja-plastyke-panorama-horyzontalna-kodry-kasi-kmity/

Karolina Bielawska fills The Other Room with her most recent painting installations. The exhibition is shown in the temporary seat of the Krupa Gallery. One of its elements, however, has been moved to a construction site – the rooms near the Market Square in Wrocław, which are undergoing a major overhaul to become the permanent seat of the gallery.
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The works are composed of four layers of technical materials – OSB chipboard, quartz sand primer for levelling difficult surfaces, putty gypsum with glass fibre to smooth and reinforce the surface, and finally wall paint – acrylic enamel.
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The compositions on the canvases look as though they followed a logical formula, a geometrical order similar to Le Corbusier’s Modulor. They are inscribed in a structure, they seem to follow it and simultaneously – to break free. The shapes divert from lines of symmetry, escape the subconsciously anticipated proportionate arrangements that could be described with a formula, equation or the golden ratio to introduce peacefulness through coherence. Actually, they are imperfect, just like real life. Abandoning the previously ideal forms is a powerful declaration – of weakness and freedom at the same time. The old order is no longer binding, a new stage of enforcing personal rules is approaching.
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Karolina Bielawska’s works combine the significance of the employed materials and the artist’s solutions for painting and composition. The crude materials making up the outlines of the subsequent layers add up to hint at anthropomorphic features. They possess a potent load of emotional interpretation – about dreams, finding, struggling for and building a place of one’s own. It is a stage of transition. Transformation results from demolishment and reconstruction. After that comes the time when previously functional objects acquire aesthetic value and begin to bear all the hallmarks of a trace. Some things are beautiful only when they are no more. Remains can be more interesting than the whole.
Life is elsewhere, Milan Kundera wrote. So is your room, more often than in the place where you are actually present. It is an imaginary space consisting of the sum of associations and dreams. Mentally idealised rather than made of brick and mortar.
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The rooms differ so completely; they are calm or thunderous; open on to the sea, or, on the contrary, give on to a prison yard; are hung with washing; or alive with opals and silks; are hard as horse-hair or soft as feathers—one has only to go into any room in any street for the whole of that extremely complex force of femininity to fly in one’s face.

[Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own]

Karolina Bielawska works with painting, usually in combination with objects and installations. She often refers to the space of home, urban aesthetics and architecture. She uses various painting techniques and materials, such as gypsum boards, enamels, impregnants.
She graduated from the Faculty of Media Art of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2015). Finalist of the Hestia Artistic Journey contest (2015) and recipient of the scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2017). She has participated in exhibitions held in venues such as the Stefan Gierowski Foundation, Galeria Wschód, The Zachęta Project Room, Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Znaki Czasu Centre for Contemporary Art, Glassyard Gallery. She lives and works in Warsaw.

“Apolonia’s Twelve Husbands” is the latest series of paintings by Pola Dwurnik, as well as her first individual exhibition in Warsaw since 2012.
The artist refers to her earlier series entitled “Apolonia’s Garden”, in which she portrayed her ex-boyfriends personified as animals. This time, referring to the history of painting, she has created twelve male portraits as allegories of the twelve months. Each of the artist’s “imaginary husbands” is not merely a representation of a different season, but also of a distinct stage in a woman’s life as well as a concept of an ideal partner. Dwurnik combines her own experiences with the expectations and fantasies of other women, resulting in twelve metaphors of contemporary society. And while she approaches the subject matter with the sense of humour typical of her entire oeuvre, it doesn’t deprive the series of its significant – or occasionally even dire– nature.

The exhibition is part of the @Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2019.
www.warsawgalleryweekend.pl

According to Oskar Hansen, the role of the architect in shaping space lies primarily in creating a “background for events”, and architecture is designed to expose people and their activities.

Home alone talks about relationships with architecture, about the creation and exploitation of urban or private spaces that we miss. The exhibition has become a pretext for telling stories, burying in memories, positive ones, but also traumatic ones.

Visual loans, such as color combinations occurring in public institutions or apartments in the 90’s, create a welcoming space that provides visitors with the feeling of being welcomed. However, postmodern architecture is characterized above all by chaos, assumptions that are not subject to the spirit of time or technical progress. At that time, the context, mood and, finally, the personal preferences of the architect and investor were important.